AP Exclusive: Air Force sidelines 17 ICBM officers

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/05/08/2588736/ap-exclusive-air-force-sidelines.html



FILE - This file photo provided by the National Park Service shows the inside of the deactivated Delta Nine Launch Facility near Wall, S.D., that is now open to the public. The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control _ and if necessary launch _ nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized and unacceptable failings, including a potential compromise of missile launch codes. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering “rot” within its ranks. The tip-off to trouble was a March 2013 inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a “D” grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations.

AP Exclusive: Air Force sidelines 17 ICBM officers
By ROBERT BURNS; AP National Security Writer
Published: May 8, 2013 at 12:14 a.m. PDT — Updated: May 8, 2013 at 12:24 a.m. PDT

WASHINGTON — The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control - and, if necessary, launch - nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit's launch skills. The group's deputy commander said it is suffering "rot" within its ranks.

"We are, in fact, in a crisis right now," the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force.

The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a "D" grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations. In other areas, the officers tested much better, but the group's overall fitness was deemed so tenuous that senior officers at Minot decided, after probing further, that an immediate crackdown was called for.

~snip~

But in April it quietly removed 17 officers at Minot from the highly sensitive duty of standing 24-hour watch over the Air Force's most powerful nuclear missiles, the intercontinental ballistic missiles that can strike targets across the globe. Inside each underground launch control capsule, two officers stand "alert" at all times, ready to launch an ICBM upon presidential order.



unhappycamper comment: "The group's deputy commander said it is suffering "rot" within its ranks." So the guys who launch Minutemen missiles are suffering rot within their ranks.

The rot also goes pretty high when you talk about military rapes. An Air Force light bird was arrested last weekend for sexual assault. Jeffery Sinclair is a Brigadier General who's also up for sexual assault. The Lackland Air Force basic training facility has a a shitload of drill instructors who are being tried for sexual assault again people in Basic training.

I think the military needs a time-out to get their shit in one bag.