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gnubittol 04-21-2008 09:29 PM

Defense secretary scolds Air Force for war effort
 
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates' complaint about struggling to get more drone aircraft to the battlefield was aimed not only at the Air Force but at the military as a whole.

Still, the Gates remarks come at a stressful time for Air Force leaders, including the service's top officer, Gen. Michael Moseley, and its civilian chief, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne. They have come under fire on a number of fronts, including criticism from some quarters that the Air Force is too wedded to Cold War-era weaponry like the F-22 stealth fighter at the expense of less glamorous items that could be used in smaller-scale conflicts like the counterinsurgency fight in Iraq.

To push the issue harder, Gates said he established last week a Pentagon-wide task force "to work this problem in the weeks to come, to find more innovative and bold ways to help those whose lives are on the line."

He likened the urgency of the task force's work to that of a similar organization he created last year to push for faster production and deployment of mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored vehicles that have been credited with saving lives of troops facing attacks by roadside bombs in Iraq.

"All this may require rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not," Gates said, referring to so-called unmanned aerial vehicles that are controlled by service members at ground stations.

The military's reliance on unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, according to Pentagon data. The Air Force has taken pilots out of the air and shifted them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.



Gates, who served in the Air Force in the 1960s as a young officer before he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, urged the officers in his audience to dedicate themselves to thinking creatively.

"I'm asking you to be part of the solution and part of the future," he said.

He said the Air Force and the other branches of the military need to protect those in their ranks who are maverick thinkers, who defy convention and push for creative solutions to hard problems. He said he intended to make a similar point about the value of dissent in the military in remarks later Monday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

"Dissent is a sign of health in an organization, and particularly if it's done in the right way," Gates said.

Gates made no direct mention of a series of mistakes and missteps involving the Air Force in recent months, beginning with an episode last August when a B-52 bomber flew from an Air Force base in North Dakota to another in Louisiana with the crew unaware that it was carrying nuclear weapons.



Last month Air Force Secretary announced that four Air Force nose cone assemblies designed for use with nuclear missiles were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. The error was not verified until shortly before Wynne made the announcement, and the matter is under Pentagon investigation.

Last week the Pentagon said its investigators had found that a $50 million contract to promote the Air Force's Thunderbirds aerial stunt team was tainted by improper influence and preferential treatment. The Defense Department's Inspector General found no criminal conduct, but laid out a trail of communications from Air Force leaders -- including from its top officer, Gen. Michael Moseley -- that eventually influenced the 2005 contract award.


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