The new leaders of the US Air Force acknowledged on Tuesday that the service lost its focus and must work to mend fences after a slew of contracting and nuclear-related missteps.
General Norton Schwartz, the new Air Force chief of staff, told Pentagon reporters that he plans to use the reinstatement of about 14,000 jobs in the service to bolster its nuclear staffing and beef up intelligence and surveillance.
“I think the bottom line is we lost focus. We did. And that focus is coming back,” said Schwartz, who was formally sworn in during a ceremony on Tuesday morning. “I think fundamentally our service is sound. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect, and we certainly have work to do, things to fix, fences to mend.”
BLUNDERS
In June, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sacked the Air Force secretary and the chief of staff, blaming them for failing to fully address a series of nuclear-related mishaps.
His decisions were triggered largely by two nuclear-related blunders by the Air Force. The first was the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. Then last August, an Air Force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base, New Dakota, to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. At the time, the pilot and crew were unaware they had nuclear arms aboard.
During their first joint press conference in their new roles, Schwartz and Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said their top priority will be to restore the highest standards to the nuclear mission.
The Air Force had been moving to reduce its active duty force to 316,000. But Gates recently agreed to reverse the cut and approved a total of 330,000 airmen. Those 14,000 new posts, said Schwartz, will likely be shifted around and concentrated in nuclear, intelligence, reconnaissance and aircraft maintenance jobs.
TAIWAN FALLOUT
Donley, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, said he has begun a review to determine if other officers should be disciplined in connection with the Taiwan mistake. He said he expects a report in the next few weeks.
As many as a half dozen officers could be considered for some type of punishment.
The oversight and handling of the US nuclear arsenal is too important to not be performed at 100 percent, Donley said.
Separately, the service has been stumbling to correct and rebid a botched US$35 billion tanker contract. Boeing protested the original award to the team of Northrop and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. earlier this year, saying it was unfairly penalized for pitching a smaller plane.
A Government Accountability Office review found the Air Force made several errors in the selection process, and the Pentagon decided to reopen the bidding.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in