Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times

Advisers: Consolidate Air Force nuke command

The Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management recommended the Air Force put all its nuclear missions under Air Force Space Command and call the whole thing Air Force Strategic Command.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates organized the task force — which was headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger — after axing the Air Force’s top two leaders last June due to its nuclear problems.

The recommendations Schlesinger announced Friday at the Pentagon also would mean that Air Combat Command would lose its nuclear bomber mission.

The task force recommended assigning a group of bombers to a numbered Air Force that would fall under AFSTRAT and have a sole nuclear mission.

After a tumultuous year in the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise, Gates said he’s confident the service “has begun to restore its nuclear mission, and is already tracking more than 180 corrective actions” the service is making.

Gates said his key concern remains the Air Force’s “lack of unity of command, and not having one person or organization accountable for the [nuclear] mission.”

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and Secretary Michael Donley have had discussions about standing up a new strategic command or placing the nuclear mission under Space Command like the task force recommended, said an Air Force official.

Schlesinger’s report also took aim at the Air Force’s inspection process.

“Over the past 10 years, inspection pass rates point to anomalies that indicate a systemic problem in the inspection regime. Something is clearly wrong,” the report read.

The passing rate for Nuclear Surety Inspections — inspections nuclear bases receive every 18 months — dropped to 50 percent Air Force-wide, then jumped to 100 percent three years later.

Schlesinger commended the Air Force Inspector General’s recent move to make all nuclear inspections no-notice, saying it was a “positive step.”

Like similar reports done into the nuclear incidents that plagued the Air Force last year, Schlesinger’s team found an erosion of standards and capabilities within the service’s handling of nuclear weapons. Schlesinger said he was “surprised,” and that the erosion went beyond what he expected.

Those incidents include the mistaken shipment of four ballistic missile nose cones to Taiwan in 2006 that sat there until last March, and the unauthorized flight of six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., in August 2007.

“I think we have the attention of the Air Force. This is a very high priority, not just for the secretary and the chief of staff, but for all senior Air Force officers,” Gates said.