I never trusted those damn puppets!
Posted on 06/05/2008 10:44:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON — Both the top uniformed officer of the Air Force and its civilian leader have been asked to submit their resignations, FOX News confirms.
Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne will resign by the end of the day, two sets of sources tell FOX News.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Something coming up soon that they don’t approve of?
Due to the fiasco at Minot AFB?
More likely, err, fallout from the live nukes incident.
No, they're being asked to resign. They're apparently being fired. Wow--big shakeup at the highest levels. The article mentions issues like nuclear weapons being transported on a B-52, and an unspecified contract problem.
I think I read someting recently that Gates was very critical of the Airforce and felt they weren’t doing enough in the Iraq theater. He thought they were underutilizing their drone capability and were basically not being proactive.
Tankers?
According to the article, it’s somehow related to the Thunderbirds.
There was some allegations that some deals were made to get the Thunderbirds to appear at an airshow. Never heard anything more about it until now.
Nope...check on google for a Thunderbirds article. The leadership involved in the episode...pushed every single button...over various objections of contracting and their own audit folks....to give a contract to a favorite character of theirs. This went very high...and demonstrated absolute incompetence amongst AF leadership in achieving such corrupt action and then just standing there condoning what had been done. They weren’t even willing to punish the folks involved to the letter of the law involved...had it been a Captain or NCO, it would be a major criminal offense. They just wanted to look the other way and pretend it wasn’t that bad.
IRAN?
Thanks! I can always count on FReepers to read the article! ;)
I never trusted those damn puppets!
The article gives a variety of POSSIBLE reasons why Gates would be unhappy, but of course Gates did not give them his actual reasons.
One more possible reason was given, not yet mentioned: “Sources tell FOX News that the Air Force has drawn criticism for back-channel dealings on Capitol Hill.”
This could be Murtha, it could be McCain and the tanker contract, or it could just be general disloyalty to the administration in cutting deals with fatcat Democrats.
Why not just insist that the person involved with the IRAN situation be punished?
Good article. There certainly seem to be a lot of reasons to dump these guys.
I was none too happy when Bush brought in Gates, but so far I think he’s done a pretty damned good job, at least as far as an outsider can tell.
Why not just insist that the person involved with the Thunderbird situation be punished?
Wait a minute. They are resigning because they signed a contract for the Thunderbirds to fly nukes over Iran?
Now I’m confused.
-- snip --
Defense Secretary Gates has publicly identified a number of problems recently with the Air Force, including last year's accidental flight of nuclear weapons on a B-52 bomber, and Moseley's ties to contract problems over the Air Force Thunderbird air show. He was later exonerated by Wynne, according to an April report by the Reuters news agency.
Check AF Times site....the base IG at Nellis said seven contracts violated the law...from Jun 2003 to December 2005 (almost three years ago that the last occurred). $50 million in contract costs involved. In one case....the folks involved were rigging the entire deal for fair competition by sliding the money to their favorite vendor....through an Alaska Native Corporation. For those who haven’t observed this Alaska Native game....there are a couple of these...”funnels”....which are rigged up for DOD, Homeland Security, and NGA. The government rigged up the game so it looks like the Indians are running the corporations...but they really aren’t, and then some of these Air Force managers think that they can use the Alaska Native “funnel” to help unfairly arrange contracts to special friends. There are millions which run this way every month....all perfectly legal....and created by our friends in Alaska (Senator Ted Stevens), who is currently is under investigation for his own problems.
ping
Q: What’s the difference between the Air Force and the Coast Guard?
A: The Coast Guard supports DoD in time of war...
That’s a lot deeper than initially reported. Sounds like these guys had any number of things to be fired over.
In B-52's.
In Thunderbird formation performing Thundebird acrobatics.
You shoulda seen it! :-)
You think it’s about the Thunderbirds?
Nah. I would spell the issue “N-U-K-E-S”
Bet a cold adult beverage that the real reason is the same one that got SecArmy canned a few years ago: going behind OSD’s back to lobby Congress for more stuff. (Crusader for the Army, F22s for the Air Force)
How did they even get them off the ground?
Being asked to resign at that level is the equivalent of being asked to leave Hell's Kitchen.
The ol’ 8A racket....
They had a similar problem about 15 years ago, only with minority owned companies. Congress passed a law giving minority owned businesses an advantage in government contracts. Some companies grabbed street people and made them CEOs of front companies just to get the contracts. Sixty Minutes did a segment on it.
Gates thought Airforce was/were/is underutilizing their drone capability and were basically not doing enough for the soldiers and marines in Iraq. And almost anyone who looks into the matter will very likely agree with Gates.
The Airforce wants $400,000,000.00 flying Barbaros and winged Big Browns for their future mythic “Knight of the Sky” Heros. The Airforce wants to re-fight World War II, and keeps buying better fighters and bombers to re-win that war.
LOL. That’s the best one I’ve heard in a while.
“Due to the fiasco at Minot AFB?”
Minot was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This has been a long time in coming, with lots of prior skirmishes... USAF’s attempt to hog all UCAV’s, the dispute over F-22 numbers, shipping the nuke detonators to Taiwan. But the big elephant in the room has been USAF’s insistence on focusing on Russia and China instead of the current wars. Gates all but accused on blue general officer of insubordination on the issue. There’s rumors that applause could be heard from the other three branches in the Pentagon today.
If it's about Iran, why do they need a cover story?
As I recall, GEN Shinseki was canned because he publicly disagreed with Rumsfeld on the number of troops to use to take, hold, and pacify Iraq.
Looks like Shinseki was right, too. Oops.
People were already canned over the Minot nuke problems (although apparently the problems persist - the same wing just failed another inspection, that included SPs who didn’t know their areas of responsibility or who were distracting themselves with video games on their cell phones).
For example, TRACOR-Flight Systems was notorious for using ‘finger puppets’ to land massive contracts in the early 80s. Most defense contracts have done this.
Nothing new.
Except the corrupt brass is finally getting their hands slapped. (forced retirement with full bennis is not punishment)
“People were already canned over the Minot nuke problems...”
But then sent components of ICBMs to Taiwan, and didn’t know about it until the Taiwanese told them.
ARRRRRRRGH!
*
These guys just ‘pushed’ for the deals.
I know from personal experience that trying to blow the whistle on this kind of behavior from these guys will get you nowhere - fast.
We need the UCAVs AND the F22 to fight China.
Sheesh!
I would have probably agreed with you up until 6-8 months ago. The tipping point in part was due in part to the surge, but I would argue that the real change occurred when the Iraqi people decided for themselves that living under terrorist control was not a good thing and that supporting their government and the Americans was a better option.
Yes, we probably should have sent in more troops in the beginning but living daily under control of the various militia groups was what made Iraqis start selling out their captors to the the U.S. Once they saw that the U.S. could deal effectively with the militias, they joined us in defeating them.
First, it gave us a lot more manpower to draw from and spread out--something Shinseki said we needed from the beginning.
Second, it moved a large number of us off the big FOBs and into the mulhallahs in various combat outposts, joint security stations, and joint command centers, living (and fighting) among the people.
As much as I loved being told that I had to spend an extra three months in the worst parts of Baghdad, it looks like the extra assets and their redeployment into the hot zones paid off greatly.
Only then did the locals start getting off their lazy *ss*s and start working with us.
~giggle~
Thank you.
Many have argued that the Democrat/MSM propaganda about Iraq has served to "demoralize our troops and embolden the enemy". Which, of course, it has.
But nobody has honestly addressed the propaganda's impact on the Iraqi people. In a war where it is absolutely necessary to get the indigenous population on your side, the Democrats' constant cries for surrender and CNN's incessant (and dishonest) reporting of incipient disaster had to have an adverse impact on the Iraqis themselves.
That they decisively chose for freedom and alliance with America is a powerful comment on their character. And on the corruption of the left-wing media.
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