US Chief of Air Force changes hands

At the end of April 2008 recently General David Petraeus replaced Admiral William Fox to oversee military operations in the Middle East.

The two top US Air Force Men

Early this month June 2008 US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates relieved air force secretary Michael Wynne and air force chief of staff General T. Michael Moseley of their duties after a probe revealed mismanagement in the US nuclear arsenal.

Mr Gates had accepted the two men's resignations and said then, that he would announce their replacements at a later time.

Mr Gates cited two embarrassing incidents. In the first, electrical fuses for ballistic missiles were mistakenly sent to Taiwan in 2006 in place of helicopter batteries. The fuses, designed for the nose cone of a nuclear missile, were sent from a US airbase in Wyoming.

The other embarrassing incident, Mr Gates added, was a flight across the US by a B-52 bomber mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, without anyone realising the weapons were on board.

The New US Air Force Chief.

Gen. Norton Schwartz, a Jewish freighter pilot has been chosen by US defense secretary Robert Gates as the new Air Force chief of staff.

If confirmed by the US Senate, Schwartz would be the first Air Force chief of staff not to have served as a fighter or bomber pilot, an Air Force spokeswoman said Monday

US Sec of Defense Robert Gates

Robert Gates also lashed out "I have noticed that none of the services easily accept honest criticism from outside their branch, or scrutiny that exposes institutional shortcomings. This is something that must change across the military,"