DaytonDailyNews.com

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired the secretary of the Air Force and the service's top general on Thursday, June 5, speculation about his motives focused on a long list of issues he had with the service's leadership and on recent embarrassments the service has suffered.

That speculation is thoroughly understandable.

And yet Secretary Gates said Thursday that he had only one reason for acting: problems in the service's handling of the nation's nuclear weapons.

If that is, indeed, his only reason, he's not overreacting.

The country has been embarrassed internationally by two big-time mess-ups. At a time when Washington has been publicly worrying about nuclear technology slipping into unqualified hands and worrying about whether Russia is doing what it should to safeguard nuclear material, the following has happened:

• Four high-tech nosecone fuses for nuclear warheads were sent to Taiwan instead of the correct shipment: helicopter batteries. Moreover, the mistake wasn't discovered for a year and a half.

• And a B-52 bomber mistakenly flew six armed nuclear cruise missiles across the country. After that was discovered, little was done to prevent a recurrence, according to a report Secretary Gates received.

The secretary basically concluded that the Air Force has lost its sense of urgency about the handling of nuclear material. And he says that is a firing offense. Moreover, he clearly wants the world to know that the administration sees it as a firing offense.

He delivered another message, too: In an administration that has a reputation for circling the wagons when something goes wrong, for fighting back against critics, he's the exception. He had delivered the message earlier, when two top officials lost their jobs over the mess at an outpatient facility at Walter Reed military hospital in Washington.

As for the non-nuclear issues relating to the Air Force: In recent months, Secretary Gates had gone public with his frustration over what he saw as the service's tardiness about getting needed equipment to Iraq. And he apparently worries that the Air Force is too focused on the interests of pilots to fully appreciate the usefulness of unmanned aircraft.

He also suggested that the military needs more inventive, independent thinkers.

Whether the nuclear issue is seen as the last straw or the only straw in the firings, Secretary Gates clearly knows what he wants at the top of the Air Force and is determined to have it. And yet he cannot be accused of taking his determination too far. He has not dismissed people lightly.

It's a shame when people who have served their country well and honorably lose their jobs under these circumstances. But the people involved will do fine. The more compelling concern is the running of the government. The world can rest easy in the assumption that the replacements will be as focused on fixing the problems at hand as it is possible to be.

Secretary Gates has demonstrated that, as far as he's concerned, they should not be shy about making personnel changes themselves.

Anybody who wishes the Air Force well can't be happy with the discord and the unprecedented firings. In the long run, though, the Air Force cannot thrive without enthusiastic backing at the highest reaches of the Pentagon. And it can't thrive if its top leaders don't have a good reputation in Congress, where there have been serious problems.

In the long run, Secretary Gates might continue to be seen as the enemy of people with a certain mindset in the Air Force, but he's not an enemy of the service itself.

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