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Weapons center chief accepts inspection blame

The commander who oversees the Air Force’s nuclear stockpile inside the U.S. is accepting responsibility for two wings failing their nuclear surety inspections.

Brig. Gen. Everett H. Thomas, who heads the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, made the comment to Air Force Times after giving an update on the service’s nuclear mission to the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. The center and the wings that failed the inspections are based at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

In November, the 377th Air Base Wing and 498th Nuclear Systems Wing received grades of unsatisfactory from Air Force Materiel Command and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for problems in personnel reliability, maintenance operations and nuclear weapons security. The 498th maintains nuclear warheads and cruise missiles; the 377th oversees training and installation security for the center, and the DTRA and the Air Force Inspection Agency, both at Kirtland.

An unsatisfactory inspection does not mean the security, safety or health of the American people is at risk, according to Gen. Don Hoffman, commander of Air Force Materiel Command.

Despite the failures, Col. Michael Duvall of the 377th and Col. Richard Stuckey of the 498th are still in command. Last year, the Air Force sacked Col. Joel Westa and Col. Christopher Ayers after their nuclear wings at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., failed nuclear surety inspections.

Thomas talked specifically about the shortcomings in the Personnel Reliability Program, designed to make sure only the most trustworthy of airmen have access to nuclear weapons. He said he failed to expand the base’s medical group after a large number of airmen joined the Nuclear Weapons Center in February 2008, when it became the sole manager of the nuclear weapons sustainment mission. A Kirtland spokeswoman could not say by press time how many airmen have joined the Nuclear Weapons Center in the past two years.

“I failed to equate the large expansion of the people under the Personnel Reliability Program with the small number in the medical group, so we overwhelmed them,” Thomas told Air Force Times.

Thomas also said he regrets not sharing the “failures and success” of past nuclear surety inspections with the wings’ leaders. He refused to use the increased difficulty of the inspection as an excuse for the failures.

The inspectors “were very, very thorough, much more thorough than in the years before, but the errors were there and we didn’t find them. They did,” Thomas said. “All we can say is, ‘OK, we need to increase the emphasis on the inspection of all weapons.’”

Inspection teams will return to Kirtland in February.

Changes have been put in place to improve the wings’ chances of passing the inspections, Thomas said.

Airmen at the Nuclear Weapons Center are now assigned to special teams, which have responsibility for certain weapons, Thomas said. He did not say how the airmen had been assigned.

The center also has organized itself much like other weapons storage areas across the Air Force — by “segregating training from operational weapons to weapons scheduled for shipment,” Thomas said. Again, he did not say how the center has been organized.

In the end, though, inspection success comes down to leadership, Thomas said.

“What I need to do as senior leader is make sure I am giving the youngsters what they need,” he said. Ë