Setiausaha Pertahanan Amerika Syarikat Chuck Hagel (U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (Reuters/Mark Wilson – think IN pictures @1WORLD Community)
SitiWanMahani - 2 pegawai Amerika Syarikat Tentera Udara yang terlibat dalam program peluru berpandu nuklear negara telah dilucutkan kelegaan keselamatan mereka dan digantung buat sementara waktu sementara tentera menyiasat tuduhan yang melibat-kan dadah haram.
Kedua-dua orang - kedua-dua pegawai di kemudahan Montana mana Minuteman 3 peluru berpandu antara benua Pentagon balistik dikawal dari - disyaki memiliki dadah, wakil-wakil untuk tentera mengakui kepada pemberita lewat Khamis. Pejabat Tentera Udara Siasatan Khas telah membuka siasatan ke dalam dakwaan tersebut, dan kedua-dua pegawai yang tidak dinamakan mempunyai interim yang telah dilepaskan daripada akses kepada maklumat terperingkat.
Berita penyiasatan meletus pada saat-saat hari Khamis sebelum Setiausaha Pertahanan Chuck Hagel telah ditubuhkan untuk menyampaikan apa yang Associated Press dianggap sebagai “bercakap semangat dirancang dengan teliti” untuk missilers di salah satu dari-pada kedua-dua kemudahan lain di negara ini yang menjadi tuan rumah kuasa ICBM di tengah-tengah laporan semangat yang rendah dalam barisan mereka.
Bercakap secara langsung kepada tentera di Pangkalan Tentera Udara Warren FE di Nebraska, Hagel memberitahu missilers, “Kami bergantung kepada profesionalisme anda”.
“Anda melakukan sesuatu yang amat penting kepada DUNIA,” AP memetik Hagel sebagai berkata. “Anda telah memilih satu profesion di mana tidak ada ruang untuk kesilapan - tidak boleh.”
“Mereka merasakan banyak kali tidak dihargai,” katanya kepada wakil media selepas ‘engagement’, Los Angeles Times melaporkan. “Mereka terperangkap di kawasan di mana tidak banyak perhatian dibayar. Dan saya tahu mereka tertanya-tanya lebih daripada sekali-sekala jika ada sesiapa yang memberi perhatian.”
Tetapi di seluruh sempadan negeri di Montana di Pangkalan Tentera Udara Malmstrom, penyiasat kini dibiarkan tertanya-tanya apa kerosakan itu disebabkan oleh pelanggaran terkini dalam keselamatan akan ditanggung oleh program peluru berpandu nuklear negara.
Hanya Ogos lalu, audit kemudahan yang dijalankan oleh Mogok Perintah Global berakhir dengan Malmstrom menerima penarafan “tidak memuaskan (unsatisfactory)”, yang menghasilkan penamatan pegawai yang menjaga pasukan keselamatan asas ini tidak lama selepas itu. Kemudian pada bulan Oktober, timbalan komander angkatan nuklear Amerika Syarikat telah ditamatkan dari kedudukannya di tengah-tengah siasatan yang melibatkan penggunaan beliau didakwa cip palsu di sebuah kasino.
Pada bulan yang sama, Tentera Udara mengakui bahawa mereka telah dipaksa untuk mendisiplinkan 2 krew di Malmstrom selepas salah seorang daripada mereka telah ditangkap meninggalkan pintu renggang di kemudahan yang selamat.
Tetapi malu terkini untuk kuasa-kuasa nuke datang kurang daripada sebulan selepas Tentera Udara menerbitkan laporan yang mengejutkan (shocking report) pada Mejar Jeneral Michael Carey - pegawai yang sebelum ini bertanggungjawab bagi ketiga-tiga sayap program peluru berpandu nuklear dan 450 ICBM tentera - di mana beliau dituduh berlaku Bender mabuk semasa perjalanan Julai 2013 ke Moscow.
Bahawa laporan setebal 42 muka surat, yang diterbitkan pada pertengahan Disember, menuduh pegawai daripada minum arak “setakat yang ia kesan kelakuannya semasa taklimat” dan perlawanan lain ketika di luar negara, dan juga termasuk tuduhan bahawa beliau dilayan, dalam kata-katanya, “panas wanita,” manakala tugasan. Carey akhirnya dipecat.
Kini sebagai nasib dua pegawai Malmstrom terletak dalam penyiasatan Tentera Udara, program peluru berpandu itu sendiri telah sekali lagi terjejas oleh tuduhan yang meli-batkan anggota tentera di tengah-tengah salah satu program Pentagon yang paling sensitif.
Bulan lepas , Pejabat Bajet Kongres yang dianggarkan bahawa pelan pentadbiran semasa untuk kuasa nuklear negara akan kos ke atas sebanyak $ 355 bilion dalam dekad akan datang.
Hagel tidak menyentuh siasatan dadah dalam ucapan beliau di Nebraska, yang dilaporkan kepadanya hanya beberapa minit sebelum dia ditangani penonton.
Nuclear officers busted for drugs while Hagel gives motivational speech . . .
Two United States Air Force officers involved in the nation’s nuclear missile program have been stripped of their security clearances and temporarily suspended while the military investigates allegations involving illegal drugs.
The two men - both officers at a Montana facility where the Pentagon’s Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles are controlled from - are suspected of possessing narcotics, representatives for the military admitted to reporters late Thursday. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations has opened a probe into the allegations, and both unnamed officers have in the interim been relieved of their access to classified information.
News of the investigation broke on Thursday moments before Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was set to deliver what the Associated Press considered a “carefully planned pep talk” to missilers at one of the two other facilities in the country that hosts ICBM forces amid reports of low morale within their ranks.
Speaking directly to the troops at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Nebraska , Hagel told the missilers, "We depend on your professionalism.”
"You are doing something of great importance to the world," the AP quoted Hagel as saying. "You have chosen a profession where there is no room for error - none."
“They do feel unappreciated many times,” he told members of the press after the engagement, the Los Angeles Times reported. “They are stuck out in areas where not a lot of attention is paid. And I know they wonder more than occasionally if anybody's paying attention.”
But across the state border in Montana at the Malmstrom Air Force Base, investigators are now left wondering what damage could have been caused by the latest breach in security to be suffered by the nation’s nuclear missile program.
Just last August, an audit of that facility conducted by the Global Strike Command ended with Malmstrom receiving an “unsatisfactory” rating, which yielded the termination of the officer in charge of the base’s security force shortly thereafter. Then in October, the deputy commander of the US nuclear forces was terminated from that position amidst an investigation involving his alleged use of counterfeit chips at a casino.
That same month, the Air Force acknowledged that they had been forced to discipline two crew members at Malmstrom after one of them was caught leaving a door at the secure facility ajar.
But the latest embarrassment for the nuke forces comes less than a month after the Air Force published a shocking report on Major General Michael Carey - the officer previously in charge of all three wings of the nuclear missile program and the military’s 450 ICBMS - in which he was accused of going on a drunken bender during a July 2013 trip to Moscow.
That 42-page report, published in mid-December, accused the officer of consuming alcohol “to the extent that it impacted his conduct during briefings” and other outings while overseas, and even included allegations that he entertained, in his words, “hot women,” while on assignment. Carey was ultimately fired.
Now as the fate of the two Malmstrom officers rests in the Air Force investigation, the missile program itself has been yet again jeopardized by allegations involving military personnel at the heart of one of the Pentagon’s most sensitive programs.
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the current administration’s plans for the nation’s nuclear forces will cost upwards of $355 billion during the next decade.
Hagel did not touch on the drug probe during his remarks in Nebraska, which was reported to him only minutes before he addressed the audience.
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