US Air Force Chief of Staff and Secretary both fired.

[Straha]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force's top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.

Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne - a highly unusual double firing.

Gates said his decision was based mainly on the damning conclusions of an internal report on the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four Air Force electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. And he linked the underlying causes of that slip-up to another startling incident: the flight last August of a B-52 bomber that was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

The report drew the stunning conclusion that the Air Force's nuclear standards have been in a long decline, a "problem that has been identified but not effectively addressed for over a decade."

Gates said an internal investigation found a common theme in the B-52 and Taiwan incidents: "a decline in the Air Force's nuclear mission focus and performance" and a failure by Air Force leaders to respond effectively.

In a reflection of his concern about the state of nuclear security, Gates said he had asked a former defense secretary, James Schlesinger, to lead a task force that will recommend ways to ensure that the highest levels of accountability and control are maintained in Air Force handling of nuclear weapons.

In somber tones, Gates told reporters his decision to remove Wynne and Moseley was based on the findings of an investigation of the Taiwan debacle by Adm. Kirkland Donald. The admiral found a "lack of a critical self-assessment culture" in the Air Force nuclear program, making it unlikely that weaknesses in the way critical materials such as nuclear weapons are handled could be corrected, Gates said.

Gates said Donald concluded that many of the problems that led to the B-52 and the Taiwan sale incidents "have been known or should have been known."

The Donald report is classified; Gates provided an oral summary.

"The Taiwan incident clearly was the trigger," Gates said when asked whether Moseley and Wynne would have retained their positions in the absence of the mistaken shipment of fuses. He also said that Donald found a "lack of effective Air Force leadership oversight" of its nuclear mission.

The investigation found a declining trend in Air Force nuclear expertise - not the first time that has been raised as a problem, Gates said - and a drifting of the Air Force's focus away from its nuclear mission, which includes stewardship of the land-based missile component of the nation's nuclear arsenal, as well as missiles and bombs assigned for nuclear missions aboard B-52 and B-2 long-range bombers.

Gates also announced that "a substantial number" of Air Force general officers and colonels were identified in the Donald report as potentially subject to disciplinary measures that range from removal from command to letters of reprimand. He said he would direct the yet-to-be-named successors to Wynne and Moseley to evaluate those identified culprits and decide what disciplinary actions are warranted - "or whether they can be part of the solution" to the problems found by Donald.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said President Bush knew about the resignations but that the White House had "not played any role" in the shake-up.

Early reaction from Capitol Hill was favorable to drastic action.

"Secretary Gates' focus on accountability is essential and had been absent from the office of the secretary of defense for too long," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The safety and security of America' nuclear weapons must receive the highest priority, just as it must in other countries."

Gates said he would make recommendations to Bush shortly on a new Air Force chief of staff and civilian secretary. Gates has settled on candidates for both jobs but has not yet formally recommended them, one official said.

Gen. Duncan J. McNabb is the current Air Force vice chief of staff.

Moseley, who commanded coalition air forces during the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003, became Air Force chief in September 2005; Wynne, a former General Dynamics executive, took office in November 2005.

Wynne is the second civilian chief of a military service to be forced out by Gates. In March 2007 the defense secretary pushed out Francis Harvey, the Army secretary, because Gates was dissatisfied with Harvey's handling of revelations of inadequate housing conditions and bureaucratic delays for troops recovering from war wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Wynne and Moseley issued their own written statements.

"As the Air Force's senior uniformed leader, I take full responsibility for events which have hurt the Air Force's reputation or raised a question of every airman's commitment to our core values," Moseley said.

Wynne said he "read with regret" the findings of the Donald report.

Posted without comment.

[Alan Bolte]

The tinfoil hatters are just gonna love this. I honestly don't know what to think.

[Lonestar]

Gates is unbelievably awesome. I would be interested to see what the actual report said(although I doubt it will be declassified anytime soon). There must have been some real whoppers in it.

[TheMuffinKing]

F'in finally. Maybe we'll see some sense brought back to our AF procurement process's. I hope we'll see more C-17 production from this!

[MKSheppard]

I still say that this is over the F-22.

Moseley and Wynne have effectively been going behind Gates' back and saying "We need 200 more F-22s"; and well, Bob Gates just used the nuclear issue; which you know, was just confined to a single bomb wing, to purge the USAF leadership.

Because you know, the F-22 is useless in the GWOT! (Gates has actually said that)

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Want some more conspiracy stuff?

According to Taiwanese media, Taiwan's Minister of Defense claims he didn't have any information on this. Officials claim that they regretted that they didn't get to take a look at the stuff.

Yeah, right , the order was helicopter batteries, the personnel opened a crate, found out that they didn't get the right thing, informed the States, filed for a refund, and the US military didn't handle this case for 1 year. The crates were stored until earlier this year, when the US military asked the Taiwanese military to destroy the stuff. The Taiwanese military didn't know what to do so asked the US to take it back. While we were waiting for the reply, the US found out what was in the crates.

In a week an unmarked military plane landed at the Ching Chuan Kang AFB. At the same time, a few AIT vehicles entered the Tainan Flight Intelligence, picked up the 4 crates, and headed off to the CCK AFB. This is the first time we had an American military plane land in Taiwan ever since we broke diplomacy with the States. Pray tell how officials of the Ministry of Defense have no clue on this

Who knows? Maybe the US finally has agreed to give us something to get our hands on ever since the Chang Hsien-Yi incident

[Wanderer]

I still say that this is over the F-22.

Moseley and Wynne have effectively been going behind Gates' back and saying "We need 200 more F-22s"; and well, Bob Gates just used the nuclear issue; which you know, was just confined to a single bomb wing, to purge the USAF leadership.

Because you know, the F-22 is useless in the GWOT! (Gates has actually said that)

What did you expect. Bush so far has appointed nothing but idiots to key posts.

[Lonestar]

Because you know, the F-22 is useless in the GWOT! (Gates has actually said that)

Don't be stupid. Of course it's useless in the GWOT. It's an air superiority fighter. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be getting a bunch of them, but Gates doesn't have the hang up Rumsfeld does about "transformation". He's been saying since day one that his priority is "Iraq, Iraq, Iraq".

Confined to one bomb wing? Apperently the independant investigation found it to be a widespread cultural lackadaisical attitude, which screams "heads should roll" to me.

[MKSheppard]

Don't be stupid. Of course it's useless in the GWOT. It's an air superiority fighter.

Which flies higher and faster than anything we have out there; and can get to any point on earth faster than any of our F-15s or F-16s. And this higher and faster performance means that it can launch guided bombs much farther away from the target.

So instead of having to wait until a F-16 is over your head to drop a JDAM on a insurgent stronghold, you can have a F-22 drop a JDAM from fifty miles away at Mach 1.6+ and have it arrive faster than waiting for the F-16.

And of course, we'll always be fighting insurgents in Iraq....

[Lonestar]

Which flies higher and faster than anything we have out there; and can get to any point on earth faster than any of our F-15s or F-16s. And this higher and faster performance means that it can launch guided bombs much farther away from the target.

So instead of having to wait until a F-16 is over your head to drop a JDAM on a insurgent stronghold, you can have a F-22 drop a JDAM from fifty miles away at Mach 1.6+ and have it arrive faster than waiting for the F-16.

And of course, we'll always be fighting insurgents in Iraq....

I'm sorry, but wouldn't carrying JDAMS greatly increase it's radar cross-section? If it's a matter of bomb-trucks, wouldn't UCAVS make more sense?

[MKSheppard]

I'm sorry, but wouldn't carrying JDAMS greatly increase it's radar cross-section?

It's called Small Diameter Bombs + Internal Carriage; gives you 2 x AIM-120s and 8 x SDBs all internal. Which should be more than enough for any insurgent bombing.

[Stuart]

This is just the start; the USAF has serious institutional problems that go back years and the foul-ups over the handling of nuclear weapons was just one set of examples of them. There's an institutional arrogance inside the AF that needs to be beaten out of the system and these firings are just a part of that process. There is a blizzard of paperwork descending on a wide variety of senior officers, none of it complimentary.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Revenge of Mr Gates, after all that fighting with the Airforce over great many things.

What else could happen now?

[TheMuffinKing]

I'm sorry, but wouldn't carrying JDAMS greatly increase it's radar cross-section?

It's called Small Diameter Bombs + Internal Carriage; gives you 2 x AIM-120s and 8 x SDBs all internal. Which should be more than enough for any insurgent bombing.

We should however factor in the cost of the F-22. As an expensive aircraft it would be hard to justify its purchase for GWOT considering we already have a capable, though aging fleet of aircraft that overmatch the capabilities of our nearest conventional rival. We should also remember that we hold the superiority in missiles and numbers. Honestly I would love to have F-22's replace our current fighters, their abilities are pretty much unmatched. I agree that they are Uber, but I think the money could be better spenty elsewhere for the near future.

[MKSheppard]

We should however factor in the cost of the F-22. As an expensive aircraft it would be hard to justify its purchase for GWOT considering we already have a capable, though aging fleet of aircraft that overmatch the capabilities of our nearest conventional rival.

Keep in mind that term aging.

What happens if there's another catastrophic fusleage failure with the F-15? Then the entire F-15 fleet except for the newest F-15Es built in the late 80s early 90s is grounded, possibly for good.

Double post fixed.
~Pablo

[Coyote]

But if I understand correctly, the F-22 is too much fighter for our needs, because we don't face another Global-Scale Continental-sized Conventional War; hence the F-35 --a cheaper version based off the same tech-- is being considered for an alternative. The F-35 is "morphable" into more varieties (carrier version, V/STOL version, etc) for less cost.

[MKSheppard]

The F-35 is "morphable" into more varieties (carrier version, V/STOL version, etc) for less cost.

And it flies slower and lower, can't supercruise, has much less payload, etc compared to the F-22. And the F-35 will be bought by a ton of people....I have an idea; let's cancel the USAF F-35 order and use the money to buy more F-22s.

[FedRebel]

This is just the start; the USAF has serious institutional problems that go back years and the foul-ups over the handling of nuclear weapons was just one set of examples of them.

1992ish, just a blind guess

But if I understand correctly, the F-22 is too much fighter for our needs, because we don't face another Global-Scale Continental-sized Conventional War;

We need the Raptor because our Eagle's are showing their age. As the F-22 is crowned as their successor, we need the damn thing

hence the F-35 --a cheaper version based off the same tech-- is being considered for an alternative. The F-35 is "morphable" into more varieties (carrier version, V/STOL version, etc) for less cost.

The F-35 is a different aircraft with a different mission and the Air Force flavor is intended to replace the F-16.

Revenge of Mr Gates, after all that fighting with the Airforce over great many things.

What else could happen now?

Uncle Sam: Um, Hi SAC, how have you been enjoying your retirement?

SAC: Fine, what do you want?

Uncle Sam: Good, Good. Well here's the thing, can you come back to work?

SAC: What the Hell for? You said the absence of an enemy made my job obsolete.

Uncle Sam: Well the ACC has been mismanaging a number of things including our nuclear deterrent...

SAC: Big surprise, who'd of thought it?

Uncle Sam: So if you could come to work as soon as possible, that'd be great. Is there anything you need?

SAC: How about a trip to Davis-Monthan and a blank check?

[TheMuffinKing]

We should however factor in the cost of the F-22. As an expensive aircraft it would be hard to justify its purchase for GWOT considering we already have a capable, though aging fleet of aircraft that overmatch the capabilities of our nearest conventional rival.

Keep in mind that term aging.

What happens if there's another catastrophic fusleage failure with the F-15? Then the entire F-15 fleet except for the newest F-15Es built in the late 80s early 90s is grounded, possibly for good.

I suppose the only measure to be taken is to press the f22 into service immediately. That would relieve some of the pressure from older fighters and hopefully give enough of a gap to refurbish those deemed appropriate.

[Wicked Pilot]

I never really had much of an opinion of Wynne, but man I did not like Moseley. That guy never should have gotten to the position he was in and I'm glad he got the boot in a most public of way.

[Stuart]

1992ish, just a blind guess

Nah, goes back further than that. To the late 1970s/early 1980s when the fighter Mafia took over from the Bomber Barons. That was a much deeper change in culture than just a shift in priorities. Under the Bomber Barons, everything ran on procedure (an attitude inculcated by Saint Curtis). For example, pre-flight check-lists had to be read from the list, not recited from memory. Each job had to be done exactly the way the manual said. The reason why was Saint Curtis had noted in WW2 that it wasn't the average, mediocre and poor pilots who crashed their aircraft, it was the top-rank ones. The reason was that the average, mediocre and poor pilots would stick rigidly to the book while the top-rank guys were confident enough to take short cuts.

When the fighter mafia took over, that painstaking by-the-book attitude went out and the 'kick the tire, light the fire and go' attitude took over. Now, to some extent that wasn't a bad thing because the by the book attitude had caused a lot of command thrombosis but the fighter mafia went overboard and dumped everything. They got away with it for years but now the chickens are coming home in a big way.

[Pelranius]

I really don't see what the big deal is with the fuses from an actual military defense pov. It's not as if Taiwan's electronics industry isn't capable of building such equipment on their own (especially if such equipment is thirty years out of date).

The only concern is political, I suppose.

[Alan Bolte]

I think the concern is not so much that Taiwan had them, but that no one noticed they went missing.