Nuclear weapon mistakes force major overhaul of Air Force operations

The first reports weren't wrong. While Air Force policy is to neither confirm nor deny reports involving nuclear weapons, then-Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne made what he called a "one-time exception" to that policy weeks later when he confirmed reports that airmen unwittingly had transported six nuclear missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on Aug. 30, during what was to have been a routine transfer of unarmed cruise missiles for eventual elimination under international treaties. "We would not be this upset with ourselves nor be striving to restore confidence if this did not involve nuclear weapons," Wynne said at the time.

A Way Forward

The incident sparked a series of internal and external investigations that revealed widespread erosion of nuclear expertise, discipline and capability across the service. Six months after the Minot-Barksdale incident was reported, the Pentagon discovered that military officials mistakenly shipped intercontinental ballistic missile nose-cone fuse assemblies to Taiwan in 2006 (Taiwan hadn't asked for the sensitive nuclear components; it had instead ordered helicopter batteries). Defense Secretary Robert Gates immediately appointed Navy Adm. Kirkland Donald to investigate the erroneous shipment. Donald, director of naval propulsion, holds the senior military position dedicated to nuclear safety. While his report remains classified, it prompted Gates to take the unprecedented step of firing Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff Michael "Buzz" Moseley in June.

Gates attributed the chain of failures in both events to an erosion of performance standards, poor leadership and oversight, the lack of a critical self-assessment culture within the Air Force nuclear program and a weak inspection program.

"The focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted with respect to perhaps its most sensitive mission," Gates said. For men and women like Sutter, who came of age during the Cold War and devoted their professional lives to the highly valued and uniquely potent world of nuclear deterrence, that erosion has been deeply disturbing. "It certainly didn't meet the zero-defects standards that those of us who grew up in this business knew," Sutter says of the Minot-Barksdale incident. It was the first time in 40 years nuclear warheads are known to have been transported on a bomber, following a 1968 prohibition of the practice.

"There's no way to minimize this," says Maj. Gen. C. Donald Alston, who is assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, a newly created position. "This was extraordinary in every way."

Alston has the unenviable task of righting the listing ship of nuclear stewardship in the Air Force. The day the B-52 air crew flew the nuclear warheads across the country, Alston was closing on a new house in the Washington suburbs where he was about to become director of space and nuclear operations at Air Force headquarters. He learned about the incident his first day on the job.

The service's initial investigation, which remains classified, found an erosion of weapons-handling standards at both Minot and Barksdale, said Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, assistant deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, during a briefing for reporters weeks after the incident. Newton outlined five steps airmen in various organizations failed to follow for handling nuclear weapons, but he said the breaches represented an "isolated incident."

But an unclassified report by the Defense Science Board in February 2008 concluded that problems ran much deeper. Among other things, the review found significant confusion among Air Force personnel about the delegation of responsibility and authority for movement of nuclear weapons.

After the Defense Science Board reported its findings, Air Force leaders removed Alston's space duties so he could devote himself entirely to improving nuclear capability within the service. In June, after Moseley and Wynne were ousted, he was tapped by then-acting secretary Michael Donley (since confirmed) to lead a task force in developing a roadmap to restoring accountability and credibility to the nuclear mission.

~ more... ~