Report attacks AF nuke inspection architecture

[unhappycamper]

Report attacks AF nuke inspection architecture
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 8, 2009 7:31:09 EST

The parade of reports criticizing the Air Force’s ability to handle nuclear weapons kept rolling in on Jan. 8 as the Defense Science Board issued a stinging rebuke of Air Force nuclear inspections.

The board — organized under the Office of the Secretary of Defense — picked apart the Air Force’s nuclear inspection architecture, faulting it for not alerting leaders to the service’s nuclear erosion and recommended the Defense Threat Reduction Agency be empowered to revitalize the Air Force’s nuclear inspection process.

Meanwhile, DSB members, who have extensive nuclear backgrounds in the Air Force and Navy, found few faults with the Navy’s nuclear inspection process.

Board members questioned the credibility of Air Force nuclear inspections after service inspectors passed five nuclear units in 2007 and 2008 even after inspections done by the DTRA, who inspected those same units at the same time, had failed them.

Air Force inspectors passed 20 out of 21 nuclear units that had Nuclear Surety Inspections, Limited NSIs or Defense NSIs from September 2007 to April 2008, according to the report. Passing that many units puzzled DSB members the year after the nuclear enterprise had deteriorated to a point that airmen mistakenly flew six nuclear-tipped weapons from North Dakota to Louisiana in August 2007.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/01/airforce_nuclearreport_010809/%2e