Advisors Back Consolidation Of Nuclear Weapons Control

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon advisory group recommends the Air Force consolidate management of its nuclear responsibilities.

The panel calls for the Air Force to convert its existing Air Force Space Command into an organization called Air Force Strategic Command. It currently has responsibility for the service’s land-based nuclear missiles but not other nuclear weapons.

It would also shift control of the supply chain from the Defense Logistics Agency to the Air Force. That change addresses one of the recent nuclear control mix-ups, the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads.

In another blunder, an Air Force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana without the crew or anybody else knowing about it.