A Gutsy Call

The lead story on the New York Times website for June 6, 2008, entitled, "2 Leaders Ousted From Air Force in Atomic Errors", states, in part, "The Air Force’s senior civilian official and its highest-ranking general were ousted by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday after an inquiry into the mishandling of nuclear weapons and components found systemic problems in the Air Force. The Air Force secretary, Michael W. Wynne, and the service’s chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, were forced to resign after the inquiry found that the latest in a series of incidents reflected “a pattern of poor performance” in securing sensitive military components, Mr. Gates said at a Pentagon briefing."

Two incidents were the primary reasons for the firings:

- In the autumn of 2006, four fuses, used to send electronic signals to the component that initiates a nuclear weapon's trigger process, were delivered in error to Taiwan, where they were placed into storage. The shipment was supposed to be helicopter batteries.

- On August 31, 2007, a B-52 bomber was accidentally loaded with six live nuclear weapons and flown from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Each missile carried a W80-1 warhead with a blast force of 150 kilotons of TNT. During the loading process, they were thought to be Cruise missiles. The nukes had been stored with conventional missiles. A single sheet of 8.5 X 11 inch paper was used to identify the live nukes. The nukes were missing for 36 hours.

Let's look at the fuse debacle. Was there no one responsible for compiling and verifying a shipping manifest prior to the items being shipped? And what of the receiving end? I assume someone had to sign for the shipment verifying that the items had been received. Were the 'responsible' individuals drunk, or high? Maybe they missed the briefing on how to do their jobs. Gross incompetence at both ends.

The accidental nuke shipment is even more egregious. If the following oft-quoted statement on nuclear shipping regulations is true, it should have been impossible for this error. "Under (Standard Operating Procedures), combat planes with combat-ready nuclear weapons can only be flown on the authority of the Commander in Chief, the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the National Military Command Authority." However, the devil is in the details. It appears that the shipment was the result of human error, not malicious intent. To prevent this from recurring, (1) Don't intermingle nukes with conventional missiles in storage, (2) CLEARLY mark the nukes in a distinctive manner so that, should intermingling occur in the future, the nukes would be easily distinguished from other missiles, and (3) Implement regular inspections of missile storage areas and periodic surprise inspections by high-ranking officers.

These incidents would be distressing enough in the best of times. But we are currently battling terrorism around the globe. Our country's security is of paramount importance. What if one of our enemies had acquired one of these devices? Why has the implementation of nuclear shipping procedures become so lax? The USA is the world's greatest superpower. Let's live up to that reputation at all levels of our government and military.

Secretary Gates and President Bush are to be commended for these firings. It took guts to make this call. It would have been much easier to discipline only those individuals involved at the ground level. And they too should be punished. But by chopping heads at the top, reverberations will be felt throughout all levels of the armed forces. This will hopefully tighten up military procedures upon which our country's safety depends.

Perhaps former Air Force secretary Michael Wynne and former chief of staff General T. Michael Moseley can get hired at entry-level positions at the U.S. Postal Service, United Parcel Service or FedEx, and learn about proper delivery procedures.