Hagel to announce overhaul of U.S. strategic nuclear forces

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will announce on Friday a plan to overhaul the Pentagon’s nuclear-weapons units and permit the Air Force to appoint a four-star general to oversee its nuclear forces.

Mr. Hagel will reveal the new security measures, undertaken in response to a series of dismissals and reports of leadership and other failures in the nation’s strategic-nuclear forces, during a press conference at the Pentagon in the morning, according to a senior defense official.

After the press conference, Mr. Hagel will travel to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota “to discuss the way ahead directly with the men and women of the nuclear force,” the official said.

Minot Air Force Base is home to parts of two legs of the nation’s strategic-nuclear triad — intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombers.

“Tomorrow, Secretary Hagel will announce a comprehensive action plan to reform the nuclear enterprise based on the results of two reviews he ordered last February in the wake of a series of incidents involving nuclear personnel,” the official said. “While our nuclear arsenal remains safe, secure, and effective today, the reports tell us we must take action now in order to ensure that remains the case in the future.”

The Air Force experienced leadership problems with the units that operate its Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, based in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The Associated Press says that it has tracked lapses in training, violations of security rules, exam cheating and misbehavior by those who oversaw the missile units.

The Pentagon’s reviews found that a combination of problems throughout the Air Force and Navy nuclear-arsenal forces amounted to fundamental flaws rather than random or periodic slip-ups that could be easily fixed, according to The Associated Press.

The Navy has also endured a exam-cheating scandal and experienced a shortage in nuclear force personnel, according to AP.