$10 billion needed to upgrade nuclear weapons systems, Hagel says

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday that Pentagon plans to spend nearly $10 billion upgrading the nation’s nuclear weapons enterprise over the next five years and significantly overhaul the program’s management structure.

Mr. Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon that the changes and spending increase — a bump of nearly 10 percent annually — are needed to address major problems plaguing the enterprise that were exposed by a series of “internal and external” reviews.

One of the more scathing reviews uncovered how Air Force personnel were using a single wrench to attach and remove nuclear warheads from intercontinental ballistic missiles at bases in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The Air Force had to ship the wrench from base to base via FedEx in order to get the job done, according to Mr. Hagel.

The wrench fiasco, he said, was “indicative of the depth and width” of the degradation of the nuclear enterprise, prompting a need for the Pentagon “to make billions of dollars” in investment in the overall program “over the next five years.”

“We’re probably looking at a 10 percent increase in the nuclear enterprise over each of those years,” he said. “Right now, we spent about 15 to 16 billion on the nuclear enterprise.”

The new spending will pay for additional personnel, equipment and facilities, said Mr. Hagel, who said the development was also motivated by a series of leadership failures that rocked the nuclear weapons enterprise in recent years.

Early this year, the Pentagon announced that dozens of Air Force nuclear launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana were suspended on suspicion of having cheated — or known about cheating of others — on a proficiency test. The Air Force later said that 92 individuals within the 500-officer strong nuclear weapons program were in some way implicated in the cheating scandal.

In March, the Pentagon fired nine missile commanders and disciplined several others over the scandal.

Mr. Hagel ordered the internal and external reviews of the nuclear program after a series of articles by The Associated Press revealed lapses in leadership, morale, safety and security at the nation’s three nuclear Air Force bases.

“The internal and external reviews I ordered show that a consistent lack of investment and support for our nuclear forces over far too many years has left us with too little margin to cope with mounting stresses,” Mr. Hagel said at the Pentagon Friday, according to the AP. “The root cause has been a lack of sustained focus, attention, and resources, resulting in a pervasive sense that a career in the nuclear enterprise offers too few opportunities for growth and advancement.”

The good news, the defense secretary said, “is there has been no nuclear exchange in the world.”