Five USAF general officers to be “disciplined” over loose nukes:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will announce a range of punishments for at least five general officers and possibly several colonels for lapses connected with the nation’s nuclear weapons.
Several senior Air Force generals declined to comment about the disciplinary actions this afternoon at the Air Force Association’s annual conference. But a congressional aide confirmed the Defense Department sent a letter to lawmakers yesterday confirming the impending disciplinary actions. The identities of the officers are not known yet. Sources declined to identify them until the punishments were officially announced.
A report by Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, director of naval nuclear propulsion, into the nuclear enterprise detailed a loss of oversight from senior Air Force leaders and lowered performance related to the nuclear mission.
Other recommendations are to bring back SAC and throw another 2,000 bodies at managing nukes.
It’s all very well and good to send letters of reprimand to colonels, but if you want to rattle cages in a service, it takes stars on the table.
Dammit, “disciplined” does not mean “punished.” The Methodists and the Quakers both publish a book of discipline. One might need to be punished occasionally, to get him back into a state of discipline, or discipleship.
These guys were PUNISHED.
Discipline is a state, not an act.
(nor, is it a verb)
@Justthisguy, yes, “discipline” is a state, but it is also a verb. No, the word does not mean “punished”, but, it does mean to train a person in the practices of the “discipline”. These are corrective actions. If you want somebody to have real discipline, then consistently show him/her, that very same set of disciplines in your own life. This is a real failure in leadership. Don’t just tell the student how to do something, show him! As always -Grumpy
Accountabililty. What a concept.
Next up leadership of Fannie, Freddie, Merril, Lehman…
Harumph. This sounds more like the missives I’m used to seeing out of NR. Full of recommendations that are obvious in hindsight and assume a perfect world. Meanwhile I’ve got to figure out how do actually accomplish the mission with what I actually have.
Recommending an additional 2000 airmen is great, but could you possibly find 2000 more nukes for your own program Admiral? We desperately need them (especially both flavors of MM).
Odds are these are just the guys playing musical chairs when the music stopped…the people REALLY responsible for the long slide into casual incompetence are lonnnggggg gone–retired, playing golf and reading the WSJ with their morning coffee at MacDonalds in Sarasota-and with their at-grade pension.
The Donovan is quite exercised about this, having worked with nukes himself. I think he wrote that one could have to sign a statement of charges just for passing a tool the wrong way when working on or around a nuke.
So. I used to work at a place that might be relevant to this post. You may remember how grumpy I was about certain things in the ’05-07 timeframe.
I’m not comfortable mentioning much further in this forum, but I will say that (a) during that tour I agonized over going to my congressman or similar painful measures, a tough decision that resulted in my instead working as best I could as a junior field grade to stop some of the worst stupid ideas, and (b) some of the Air Force mistakes are a result of a loud and intense shift of focus at the combatant command level away from the traditional mission of my command to other, sexier things. For example, some of those 2000 people were given away to other commands as part of that shift.
I think there is “opportunity to improve” (heh) in other places not limited to Air Force and other shoes might drop.
@Justthisguy, to put it mildly, there has been a major change with the US Military. It did not start with 9/11 or Bill Clinton. It started with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush ’41. With the perceived “end of the Cold War”, this Country made some serious changes to our tactical and strategic thinking about the defense of the Nation. The decisions were made on the Presidential level based on perceived budgetary savings. Those decisions did not save us money and cost us lives.
@Chap, #7,I would give an “echo” to his last paragraph. It is a SERIOUS WARNING!
I’ve gone as far as I can or am comfortable on going with, on this subject. Most of this is out there in open source. If you want it, put your bias aside, as not useful for the task. This becomes a personal journey, not a group event. As you walk through the journey, keep a journal. You’ll be glad you did.
Remember, “Freedom is not free, never was, nor shall it ever be free.”
Grumpy
…Having seen a great many senior blue-suiters do stupid things, allow me to suggest that the only – the ONLY thing that will get anyone’s attention is if some of those guys lose their stars, and lose them permanently – no secret backchannel attempts later to restore them, either, as in the case of BGen Teryl Schwalier (USAF CC in Saudi Arabia at the time of the Khobar Towers attack).
Mike
Agreed, Mike, but my point is that most of those who REALLY need to lose their stars have probably moved on well into retirement without suffering any consequences. The only good it will do now is as a warning signal “pour encourger les autres.”