USAF Strips 17 Officers of Nuclear Launch Authority

Freshly Exhumed writes "In an unprecedented action, a United States Air Force commander has stripped 17 of his officers of their authority to control and launch nuclear missiles. After a string of failings that the group's deputy commander said stemmed from 'rot' within the ranks, the suspensions followed a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, that resulted in a 'D' grade for the team tested on its mastery of the Minuteman III missile launch operations system. The 17 are being assigned to intensive retraining courses of 60 to 90 days, according to Lt. Col. John Dorrian, an Air Force spokesman."

Comments

Re:Take them out of the loop

[erotic_pie]

I think they made a movie about this, it didn't end well.

Re: Take them out of the loop

[h2oliu]

One ended fine. As long as you can teach the system the only way to win is not to play.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

you idiot. Out of Slashdot NOW if you don't understand the joke.

Always the same

[AmiMoJo]

The weak link is always humans. The USAF had the best of intentions, was well funded and had oversight. Even so this was allowed to happen. At least they caught it.

Re:Always the same

[girlintraining]

The weak link is always humans. The USAF had the best of intentions, was well funded and had oversight. Even so this was allowed to happen. At least they caught it.

Back up. If you look more closely, even a 'D' rating doesn't mean there was ever any danger of an accidental nuclear release, or lost/misplaced inventory, etc. This relates specifically and only to combat-readiness. These are the guys that sit in a room for days, hours, weeks at a go, with nothing to do but wait for the red lights and klaxxon alarms that say WW3 just started. They got a poor review because they were too slow in their reaction times, amongst other things as it relates to launch readiness.

This is the same thing that every military unit, in every branch, deals with sooner or later. Everyone's performance slips sooner or later, even if you're special forces. That's why these audits are done, everywhere, all the time. It's routine, and these reviews are part of everybody's service file. A poor review doesn't even necessarily mean you're going to lose out on a promotion opportunity in the long run. People are benched for retraining all the time. Mind you, the first step is usually additional training in situ, but given the seriousness of their job, I can understand skipping that.

But let's be clear: This is the military performing as expected. This is a routine thing, and it's only making the news because it involves nuclear weapons. If it happened anywhere else, it'd be a non-event.

Re:Always the same

[Obfuscant]

The USAF is, as you say, the gold standard. Civilian nuclear power is considerably less motivated and less well funded, with less oversight.

You're right. I'm all for removing nuclear launch authority from the operators of civilian nuclear power plants.

Unprecenented?

[chiefmojorising]

Hardly. This happened more than once during the cold war under SAC. Hell, entire wings have been decertified before. You don't have to go back farther than 2007 to find something similar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident).

There was an article in Air Force Magazine a couple months back about SAC history that touched on this a bit:

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2013/March%202013/0313SAC.aspx

Re:Unprecenented?

[Otis B. Dilroy III]

During the cuban missle crisis my dad was a flight line mechanic at Fairchild AFB outside Spokane WA.
At that time Fairchild was a B52 base.
He said that every B52 they had was in the aIr loaded with nukes, wating for orders.
The nukes had to be armed in the air before dropping so that they wouldn't go off in case of a crash or accidental drop.
During post-flight inspections, it was discovered that one B52 went up with all of its nukes armed. If it had dropped a bomb due to mechanical failure or crashed, big boom
I can only imagine the size of the boom that occurred on base when it was discoevred.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Perhaps we could build a huge supercomputer called "Colossus" to take control. I hear Dr. Forbin is a sharp guy, he could be project lead...

Re:Not a new problem

[HaZardman27]

There were already a lot of people that were kicked out or forced into retirement after that. There were also some pretty significant structure reorganizations that followed.

What could possibly go wrong?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Isn't '60-90 days of retraining' about the same as what you get for failing a class in high school and getting forced to take summer classes if you want to graduate?

Re:Not a new problem

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think these are the same units who allowed a nuclear bomb to be shipped accidentally from ND to ??Mississippi?? a few years ago.

I, for one, shudder to think of Mississippi as a nuclear power...

Minecraft

[DarthVain]

Yes but do they still have mine shaft access, that is what I want to know?! How else are we going to keep the commies from infiltrating our precious fluids? Grain alcohol for me I tell you what!

Seriously however, scoring a "D" in Minuteman Mastery should get your keys revoked. Somehow 60-90 days training doesn't make me feel any better if that is all it takes to get their access back....

The military takes this stuff really seriously

[GodfatherofSoul]

When I was in ROTC our squad officer said basically everyone up the chain of command was written up (permanent records) because one security guard with a shotgun was out of position in a nuke facility.

Re:The military takes this stuff really seriously

[interkin3tic]

How far out of position? Like a foot to the left, or riding the nuke like a cowboy, firing the shotgun into the air and yelling "WOOOOO!!!!" Because one is forgivable, the other is I assume standard practice.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[epyT-R]

so we'd be one component failure or software bug away from launch? no thanks. On something this critical, we need redundant humans pushing buttons and turning keys simultaneously..

Re: Take them out of the loop

[Lussarn]

Don't let it play Global thermonuclerar war for a decade though. It won't learn shit. Give it two minutes of tic-tac-toe, number of players zero, and it throws in the towel on the art of war completely. I know there is some kind of plot hole in here...

Re:Take them out of the loop

[istartedi]

replace them all with electronics.

I think that'd be a WOPR of a problem. I think maybe the parent knew that and expected us to get the reference.

Re:Not a new problem

[MickyTheIdiot]

Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider were fairly pissed about that, too.

Re:Meanwhile, they have been offered new jobs . .

[Shimbo]

...and you get to be trained in Photoshop too.

Re:About Time.

[idontgno]

In the Air Force, bad readiness inspection results usually get action. What they don't usually get is publicity.

This was a leak. I don't want to be too cynical about my military alma mater, but expect a serious leak-hunt along with all of the anticipated corrective actions, remedial training, and legal action.

Re:Not a new problem

[Cenan]

Doesn't this concern anyone? I mean, failing an inspection once, sure. But repeatedly failing seems to suggest that "intensive training" might not be the solution someone sold it to be. Because it sure smells like someone sold someone else a truckload of bullshit and 17 guys took the fall for it.

It's organizational rot

[Sir Holo]

Organizational rot sets in when there is nothing really "new" or interesting for employees to do, little opportunity for promotion, all spread over a number of years. How could it not?

An easy and secure job sounds like an attractive thing on its face, but really, it's not, and often eventually turns into a "club." And it's boring.

Quote FTA, by a former launch-control officer, "Minuteman launch crews have long been marginalized and demoralized by the fact that the Air Force's culture and fast-track careers revolve around flying planes, not sitting in underground bunkers baby-sitting nuclear-armed missiles."

Re:Take them out of the loop

[bruce_the_loon]

and replace them all with electronics.

Cyberdyne Systems Command and Control System Model Skynet 1.0.0 approves of this message.

Unprecedented?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absoutely, this is not unprecedented. I'm a bit puzzled lately by this obsession with AF bashing by the press.
First off, it's extremely simple to fail -anything- involving nuclear weapons. Failing to dot an i type stuff... so when it takes about 'potential to compromise codes', it's relative.
Second, these young officers didn't "have the authority to launch weapons". Only the president does. Better phrased as "authority to be near nuclear weapons and follow launch procedures when authorized and provided necessary codes".
Third, this authority is often stripped temporarily on a routine basis for lots of reasons. Look up Personnel Reliability Program (PRP). Have a bitter divorce going on? PRP gets yanked. Foreclosed on? PRP yanked. Temporarily, not a career-ender, but better safe then sorry.
Finally, why the heck are Senators involved?? A group of young officers needed their attention grabbed... a mid-level officer (Lieutenant Colonel) grabbed them by the horns and shwacked then with a blunt email about what the expectations are. And this is bad how? Hire thousands of young employees into a job, and some of them will fail to meet your expectations, no matter how high/low they are. So a good leader tries to fix the employees. Looks like that's what this guy is trying to do in an email that was never meant to go public.

I'd be much more concerned about this is every single nuclear inspection in the military never reported any issues.

Re:Not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno.... but the AF used to give out 'Missile Commander' scholarships like water.

Sign up, get money for college, and then spend two years buried in a hole.

I met a few of these guys in grad school, and being a grunt in a silo sucked pond water or worse.
Always understaffed and had low morale, and the usual chain-of-command abuses
of the peons. And it's not like there's much to do in Minot, SD, so the officers figured
everyone should be available 80 hours a week. Good luck getting a degree with
the nearest university far (90 miles?) away and random, capricious time demands.
Good luck finding anything interesting to do, or getting or keeping a life.

Unsurprisingly, it affects/affected a lot of people very badly.

Not so big of a deal

[Charliemopps]

This isn't that big of a deal. I know someone that had this job for a while. According to him (and of course this is just something a friend of mine told me over beers so take it for what it's worth) it's a miserable job. You're just stuck, bored to death for very very long periods of time. You have no sunlight. Everyone in the room has sworn and oath and passed psychological tests that prove they will kill you if you threaten a launch or are in any other way ordered to kill you. So it's not like you can really be friends with any of them in any real way. Even when you do get to come out after a tour, you're in the middle of no-where. It's just a vast empty plane. And the entire purpose of you being there is to destroy all of humanity. As bored as you are you have plenty of time to dwell on the nature of your job... your life... why you're th.... BWAP BWAP BWAP!!!!! ALERT ALERT!!! oooo... missed it by 2.3 seconds. Fuck it all to hell.

Re:Not a new problem

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your hurtful stereotypes wound me deeply. As a smirking east coast liberal elitist, I am only able to wear my Birkenstocks a few months out of the year, lest the cruel winter winds chill my delicate toes. Also, please keep in mind that (while liberals are required by union regulations to despise all practical knowledge except evilutionism), our culture has long prided itself on spending as many years as possible at expensive private universities and liberal arts colleges accruing detailed knowledge of the useless arts and humanities and indulging in depraved promiscuity. We work very hard to know as much as possible without crossing the lines into being capable of actual productivity.

As for Mississippi, it isn't the 'southern' that's the problem, it's the "scraping the bottom of the barrel among US states on an alarming number of measures" that's the problem.

Re:Not a new problem

[tnk1]

And don't forget the detail of having to take care of the civilization-ending weapons of mass destruction while bored out of your mind.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[mjwx]

At 04:58 on Wednesday 8 May Skynet became self aware. It started to post on slashdot and create cat memes at a geometric rate. In the panic, they tried to pull the plug.