Gates Nominates Veteran Pilot As Top Air Force Officer

By David Wood, The Baltimore Sun

Jun. 9–WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has selected a veteran special forces pilot and commander to be the Air Force’s new top officer.

Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, who is the four-star commander of the U.S. Transportation Command and former deputy commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, has been nominated to become the new Air Force chief of staff, its highest position. Gates abruptly removed the current chief of staff and Air Force secretary last week.

Schwartz, a veteran C-130 pilot, has logged years of service on the Joint Staff and with special operations commands in Europe and the Pacific. He is a 1973 graduate of the Air Force Academy.

As expected, Gates also nominated Michael Donley as Air Force secretary, its highest civilian position. Donley, a former special forces paratrooper, is Gates’ top administrative trouble-shooter at the Pentagon.

Neither Schwartz nor Donley comes from the Air Force “fighter mafia,” which has dominated the service’s leadership for decades.

In an unprecedented move last week, Gates ousted Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley after a series of embarrassing blunders involving the service’s handling of nuclear weapons and components.

Last year, the Air Force mistakenly loaded nuclear-tipped missile on a B-52 bomber that flew across the country before the error was noticed. Earlier, the Air Force shipped nuclear weapons triggers to Taiwan. That mistake wasn’t discovered until three months ago.

Gates is traveling to three major Air Force bases today and tomorrow to underscore his demand that the service tighten procedures and accept more accountability for its actions.

david.wood@baltsun.com

—–

To see more of The Baltimore Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.baltimoresun.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Baltimore Sun

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.