Backtalk: The right direction

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The right direction
By Karen Walker

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ decision to fire Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne was likely as painful for Gates as it was unprecedented. But it might ultimately prove a healthy move for the Air Force.

As far-fetched as a double decapitation may have seemed several months ago, one really could have seen it coming. The recent report on the mishandling of nuclear-weapon components was simply the last straw.

Under Wynne and Moseley, Air Force leaders refused to listen to calls for change, even as the military landscape shifted around them. Their disregard of increasingly pointed messages has, at times, bordered on insubordination: for example, their insistence on acquiring twice as many F-22 Raptors as called for in Gates’ budget.

Gates’ “pulling teeth” speech, delivered in April to the Air War College and Air Command and Staff College, should have been a clear signal that change was overdue. He encouraged the officer-students “to become a forward-thinking officer who helps the Air Force adapt to a constantly changing strategic environment characterized by persistent conflict.” He spelled out his frustrations by saying: “I’ve been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets into the theatre. Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it’s been like pulling teeth.”

The Air Force tried to spin that last part as being mostly aimed at the Army. But if Gates had wanted to take on the Army, he could have done it later that same day at a speech he delivered to Army cadets at West Point.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_firings_061608/