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Officers Overseeing Nuclear Arms Accused of Cheating on Tests

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  • Officers Overseeing Nuclear Arms Accused of Cheating on Tests

    Cheating Accusations Among Officers Overseeing Nuclear Arms

    By HELENE COOPERJAN. 15, 2014

    WASHINGTON — The Air Force said on Wednesday that 34 officers responsible for launching the nation’s nuclear missiles had been suspended, and their security clearances revoked, for cheating on monthly proficiency tests that assess their knowledge of how to operate the warheads.

    At a news conference, Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the Air Force, said the officers, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, either knew about or took part in texting answers to the routine monthly tests.

    Eleven Air Force officers — including two accused in the Malmstrom cheating scandal, as well as one other nuclear missile officer — have also been the focus of suspicion in an illegal drugs investigation, defense officials said.

    Although the Air Force has been plagued in recent years by scandals, the current revelations are particularly alarming because they involve America’s nuclear arsenal, where errors could be catastrophic.

    “There’s no making this better,” said Kathleen Hicks, a former top defense official in the Obama administration. She called any potential security lapse in the country’s nuclear arsenal as “worrisome. Period. Full Stop.”

    Defense officials insisted that the nation’s nuclear arsenal remained safe.

    “This is not about the compromise of nuclear weapons,” said Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff. He called the revelations a “compromise of the integrity of some of our airmen” and said the Air Force “will not accept or allow that type of behavior.”

    He characterized the Malmstrom case as the largest cheating episode he had come across among missile launch officers.

    Defense experts say that the end of the Cold War and the elevation of counterterrorism in the American military has led to low morale among the men and women, known as missileers, who live and work within a hair trigger of the country’s 450 nuclear missiles. The missileers have increasingly come to view their mission as a backwater, with little chance of advancement to the top ranks of the Air Force.

    Bruce G. Blair, a former Minuteman missile launch control officer, said missile officers routinely cheated, in part because the Air Force required them to score 100 percent on the proficiency tests. “Perfection is demanded of all of these crew members, and it’s an impossible standard,” Mr. Blair said.

    The Air Force cheating and drug scandals come at a time when a large number of senior officers in other branches of the military have been investigated, penalized or fired in connection with allegations of sexual improprieties, sexual violence, financial mismanagement or poor judgment.

    But Air Force nuclear missile officers have had particular problems. Last month, an Air Force inquiry revealed that the general who oversaw some of the nation’s nuclear weapons was dismissed for drunken antics during an official trip to Moscow last summer.

    The officer, Maj. Gen. Michael J. Carey, was removed as commander of the 20th Air Force, which maintains and operates intercontinental ballistic missiles, after being accused of drinking heavily, insulting his guests, consorting with someone identified as the “cigar shop lady,” and slurring his speech while weaving in Red Square, “pouting and stumbling.”

    Last May the Air Force disclosed that it removed 17 officers assigned to stand watch over nuclear-tipped Minuteman missiles after finding safety violations, potential violations in protecting codes and attitude problems.

    And last November, The Associated Press reported that Air Force officers with nuclear launch authority had twice been caught napping with the blast door open. That is a violation of security regulations meant to prevent a terrorist or intruder from entering the underground command post and compromising secret launch codes.

    The Pentagon disclosed the original drug inquiry last week, but officials have declined to go into details on the investigation, which is continuing, other than to say that the officers are suspected of possessing recreational drugs.

    Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado and chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the nuclear arsenal, said Wednesday of the cheating scandal that “there is simply no room in our Air Force, and certainly in our nuclear enterprise, for this type of misconduct.”

    Ms. James said she would travel next week to missile launch sites to discuss ways to prevent future problems. She said that 600 missile crew members across the Air Force, including all of the 190 officers at Malmstrom, would retake the proficiency test by Thursday.

    General Welsh said that the time frame for the cheating alleged to have occurred was last August and September.

    As for the reports in November of crews sleeping with the blast door open, Mr. Blair, the former Minuteman launch control officer, said that back when he was a missileer, “everyone slept with the blast door open.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us...eating.html?hp

    No question, this is serious. But how serious? Maybe some of the military folks here can put this in perspective.
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

  • #2
    Only few months after this Missile doors left open while nuclear officer slept - CNN.com

    I am curious why this is in the news? Is there any other way to sort this out behind the curtains?
    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Doktor View Post
      There was also a gambling scandal and a Strategic Command General who got drunk in Moscow and was carousing with Russian women. The warning signs that something is amiss in this command have been increasing over the last few years.
      sigpic

      Comment


      • #4
        JAD, damned serious. It smacks of a breakdown of good order and discipline.

        I mean these are all commissioned officers! It's not a bunch of dumb privates.

        If I was NCA/SECDEF I would have CSAF and SECAF resignations over this...and people would lose stars.
        “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
        Mark Twain

        Comment


        • #5
          Albany:

          I can see it now. Memos are flying back and forth to the SecDef on what went wrong and how to fix it. I expect some heads will roll, but typically they'll be far down the line. Seeing as how this has to do with control of nuke forces, I agree with you; stars should be taken away up the line. We can't afford even the appearance that we don't have superlative control of our nukes.
          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
            Albany:

            I can see it now. Memos are flying back and forth to the SecDef on what went wrong and how to fix it. I expect some heads will roll, but typically they'll be far down the line. Seeing as how this has to do with control of nuke forces, I agree with you; stars should be taken away up the line. We can't afford even the appearance that we don't have superlative control of our nukes.
            Smacks of a breakdown in morale in the Strategic Command.

            Comment


            • #7
              Obviously some changes need to be made. I just hope someone doesn't go with the "out sourcing to a private firm would be better" option.
              Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

              Comment


              • #8
                Part of the problem is relevance of mission....which is still vital.

                Don't know how to fix it.
                “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                Mark Twain

                Comment


                • #9
                  Why can't we resurrect Curtis LeMay?

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Skywatcher View Post
                    Why can't we resurrect Curtis LeMay?
                    To do what?
                    Those who know don't speak
                    He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Mihais View Post
                      To do what?
                      Reorganize? He seemed good at that.
                      No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                      To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Officers say they were driven to cheat by consequences of failure... it's common to cheat and it's been going on for years. What is happened to honor among officers?



                        Culture of Cheating Permeates Air Force Missile Corps

                        By HELENE COOPERJAN. 22, 2014

                        WASHINGTON — Top military officials were quick to voice outrage over revelations last week that 34 officers responsible for launching the nation’s nuclear missiles cheated on monthly proficiency tests, but few expressed surprise.

                        Cheating has been a fact of life among America’s nuclear launch officers for decades, crew members and instructors said. “When I saw that they got something wrong, I would say, ‘Go back and look at No. 5 again,’ ” said Brian Weeden, a former launch officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana who said that he routinely asked new crew members to show him their test answers before they turned them in.

                        The same help, he said, was offered to him by his instructors when he first began a tour of duty in which officers are expected to score 100 percent on the monthly written tests, and anything below 90 percent is a failing grade.


                        Air Force officials insist that regardless of the cheating, there is no potential for a nuclear mistake because several backup procedures are in place. For their part, missile launch crew members say they do know the test material — which includes how to handle nuclear launch codes — but argue that the grading standards are unreasonably high.

                        Whoever is right, the cheating scandal comes as the nation’s missile launch officers, known as missileers, are caught in a vicious cycle. They work with the lethal jewels of the nation’s arsenal, for which errors can be catastrophic, but they find themselves forgotten on the sidelines, overshadowed by combat and Special Operations forces central to the marquee mission of fighting terrorism. No one wants a nuclear conflict, but many launch officers see their lot as spending a lifetime waiting for a war that will never come.

                        “The nuclear deterrent mission has lost much of its status in the Air Force as the Cold War ended, and many of the personnel on the mission are demoralized,” said Loren B. Thompson, the head of the Lexington Institute, a research organization.

                        Former missileers say the cheating is also driven by what they say are onerous consequences for failing the tests, including additional time on “alert” in the isolated, cramped underground capsules from which the missiles are launched. In the language of diplomacy, they say there are few carrots for rewards and far more sticks for retribution.

                        “The sticks are so severe, the punishment for imperfection so great, that it encourages crew members to work together to ensure no one fails,” said Bruce Blair, a former missile launch officer and a co-founder of Global Zero, which advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons. Mr. Blair said he cheated on his proficiency tests, as did his fellow crew members.

                        Missile launch officers must also pass practical tests that include simulations of attacks on specific cities, and that are widely believed to be impervious to cheating.

                        One former missileer who left Malmstrom in 2010 said he believed that every officer there knew about the cheating and that 85 percent to 90 percent of them — himself included — cheated on the tests. “The penalty is so severe that everyone is freaked out,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions. “It makes your life so much worse when you miss a question, and there are no real consequences to not knowing the answers, so people help each other out.”

                        Current and former missileers described a surreal circular dance in which crew members routinely cheated on the tests, got promoted to higher rank and then officially announced their zero tolerance of cheating, all while looking the other way.

                        “The colonels, they all did the exact same thing we did,” said one captain, who left Malmstrom in 2011 after four years there, and who said he routinely cheated. He also asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal from the Air Force. “Then they put on a facade that they had to do the right thing now. But everyone knew.”

                        Last week, the Air Force said that the 34 suspended launch officers, all at Malmstrom, either knew about or took part in the texting of answers to the tests. Air Force officials ordered all missile launch officers to retake the test, and said that by Friday nearly 500 had done so, with an overall pass rate of 95.6 percent.

                        Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, commander of the Twentieth Air Force, Air Force Global Strike Command, said the breadth of the cheating at Malmstrom — the 34 officers represent 17 percent of the Malmstrom launch crew — “shocked” him. A former missileer himself, he said he had never cheated or witnessed cheating.

                        The special weapons culture has surely changed when I was in the program in the 1980s. We took our responsibility and duty very seriously....


                        “I’m not saying that people did not complete a test and then tell others, be careful of this question or that question,” General Weinstein said. “But to the extent of full answer sheets being passed around, I’ve never seen that before.”

                        Many military officials believe that demoralization may have led to a spate of recent mishaps among Air Force nuclear missile officers. In the past year, a general who oversaw nuclear weapons was dismissed for drunken antics during an official trip to Moscow, 17 officers assigned to stand watch over nuclear-tipped Minuteman missiles were removed for violating safety codes and having bad attitudes, and missileers with nuclear launch authority were caught napping with the blast door open — a violation of security regulations meant to prevent terrorists or other intruders from entering the underground command post and compromising secret launch codes.

                        Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew to Wyoming and Nebraska on Jan. 9 to reassure disheartened missileers that what he called their lonely work was still valued. It was the first visit to missile crew members by a Pentagon chief since 1982.

                        “They are stuck out in the areas where not a lot of attention is paid, and I know they wonder more than occasionally if anyone is paying attention,” Mr. Hagel told reporters.

                        But on the day of his trip, another scandal erupted as investigators reported that several missile launch officers had been implicated in an investigation into illegal drugs. That inquiry eventually widened to include the cheating scandal at Malmstrom.

                        Mr. Weeden, the former launch officer at Malmstrom, who is no longer in the Air Force, summed up the view of many missileers as he recalled the events of Sept. 11, 2001. For four days, he stayed in the underground capsule, watching the images on television and reeling from the attacks.

                        It changed the way he thought about his job, he said, by driving home the fact that nuclear weapons are no longer the centerpiece of national security.

                        “We couldn’t do anything,” Mr. Weeden said. “The mantra had always been that the nuclear deterrent would keep America safe. But it didn’t. So I felt, not only did we fail to deter those attacks, but we couldn’t do anything about it after.”

                        http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us...-say.html?_r=0
                        To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          From what I understand, there is also some animosity between the launch officers and the AF technicians who maintain the missiles.
                          sigpic

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Mihais View Post
                            To do what?
                            Provide effective leadership, at the very least (those LeMay would probably try to cut missiles and build more bombers).

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Why are they still on active service? Unless the Air Force is looking at all the things that they should be charged with and waiting to convene the Court Martial. The ones that cheated, the ones that knew and the ones in charge that allowed this to happen should be processed out of the service immediately.

                              Good riddance to bad rubbish.

                              And this whining about "Our mission doesn't seem as important" and "The standards are too high" is a bunch of crap. GTFO if you don't like it. We can make more officers.
                              Last edited by Gun Grape; 25 Jan 14,, 19:51.

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