Setiausaha Pertahanan Amerika Syarikat Chuck Hagel (U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
(Reuters/Mark Wilson – think IN pictures @1WORLD Community)
JohnnyAdam – 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
melibatkan 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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