Nuclear Fallout

Different reports give numbers from three to six officers as being relieved of their command, and some 65 airmen decertified from handling nuclear weapons following that accidental B-52 flight from North Dakota to Louisiana armed with nuclear warheads.

Surprise! Another criminal nominee

President Bush's choice to head the Air Force is a longtime Pentagon official whose nomination will get strong scrutiny because of his role in a scuttled airplane lease deal that resulted in a prison term for a former top Defense Department official.

[...]

The Air Force has jettisoned a $23.5 billion plan to lease jets from the Boeing Co. for use as air refueling tankers. Boeing's former chief financial officer and a former top Air Force official were sentenced to prison on corruption charges related to the deal.

The former Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, is serving a nine-month term at a federal prison in Florida. She admitted inflating the lease price as a "parting gift" to Boeing before leaving the Pentagon for a job at the aircraft giant in 2002.

Wynne was a deputy, then head of the Pentagon's acquisition office. A report by the Defense Department's inspector general in May faulted Wynne for not requiring the Air Force to follow proper procedures for the Boeing leases.

The report said Wynne told the White House budget office that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the lease idea "after comprehensive and deliberative review by the Leasing Review Panel" when that panel had not finished its deliberations or made recommendations.

[...]

Wynne's nomination comes as the Bush administration continues to have difficulty winning approval for its Pentagon nominees.

  Yahoo News article

Maybe they should make an attempt to find honorable nominees.

Or they can always wait until the next recess and then Buttie can appoint him without Congressional approval, like he's done so man

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Surprise! Another criminal nominee

President Bush's choice to head the Air Force is a longtime Pentagon official whose nomination will get strong scrutiny because of his role in a scuttled airplane lease deal that resulted in a prison term for a former top Defense Department official.

[...]

The Air Force has jettisoned a $23.5 billion plan to lease jets from the Boeing Co. for use as air refueling tankers. Boeing's former chief financial officer and a former top Air Force official were sentenced to prison on corruption charges related to the deal.

The former Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, is serving a nine-month term at a federal prison in Florida. She admitted inflating the lease price as a "parting gift" to Boeing before leaving the Pentagon for a job at the aircraft giant in 2002.

Wynne was a deputy, then head of the Pentagon's acquisition office. A report by the Defense Department's inspector general in May faulted Wynne for not requiring the Air Force to follow proper procedures for the Boeing leases.

The report said Wynne told the White House budget office that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the lease idea "after comprehensive and deliberative review by the Leasing Review Panel" when that panel had not finished its deliberations or made recommendations.

[...]

Wynne's nomination comes as the Bush administration continues to have difficulty winning approval for its Pentagon nominees.

  Yahoo News article

Maybe they should make an attempt to find honorable nominees.

Or they can always wait until the next recess and then Buttie can appoint him without Congressional approval, like he's done so many times before.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

When will they boot us out of Okinawa?

The US Air Force has apologised to the family of a 10-year-old girl who was allegedly molested by one if its airmen in Okinawa at the weekend.

[...]

Police arrested 27-year-old Sergeant Armando Valdez - who denies the assault - after the girl told her mother a drunken soldier had groped her and taken a photo of her naked chest in a car park in the city of Naha. The Okinawa Times, quoting police, said yesterday that Sgt Valdez still had the photograph of the girl in his mobile phone when he was questioned.

[...]

The incident is the latest in a string of sexual assaults by American servicemen to have angered the inhabitants of the southern Japanese prefecture, which plays reluctant host to dozens of American military bases.

[...]

In 1995, two marines and a sailor kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old girl before leaving her for dead in a crime that capped years of sexual assaults and which caused the largest anti-US demonstrations since the end of the Second World War.

[...]

"There is a lot of anger in Okinawa right now," said Shoichi Chibana, an assemblyman who campaigns for the removal of American bases. "People are afraid of these crimes because they just never stop, and they won't stop until the military leaves."

   Independent UK article

You think? Is there any place on the planet with an American military base that doesn't suffer these horrors? Hell, our guys rape and molest their own fellow soldiers.

But we're the good guys, right?