Interview: Wynne speaks out

[CommunityEditor]

Wynne sat down July 9 for a wide-ranging discussion with Military Times editors and reporters, explaining why he was really fired, what went wrong with the nuclear enterprise, what can be done about Iraq and how he sees the future of the Air Force.

Military Times: Why were you fired? Was it the accidental transfer of nuclear weapons from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., in August and the mistaken shipment of nuclear warhead fuses to Taiwan in 2006, or were there other factors?

Michael Wynne: Secretary [Gates] and I had some long-standing disputes about the funding for F-22. ... We had a dispute about the future. We had a dispute as to whether or not you should spend your time worrying about the strategic effects of the future, or you should spend your time on the war as it sits. So I think [me] going out and viewing a little bit about what’s the future was construed as the secretary of the Air Force distracted from [his] duties.

We moved missiles between Minot and Barksdale. We did. In 2004 began the odyssey of the missile parts to Taiwan, which was not in the watch I was on, but nevertheless the results occurred during the time I was [secretary]. And so ascribing it to my tenure is interesting. ...

So you look through that and you say to yourself ... if [Gates] didn’t want somebody on his staff, the secretary should pick the time and the place and tell [me] to leave.

I’m just amazed at the circumstance. Why didn’t [he] just call me in and say, “Time to go”?

MT: So you think the report by Navy Adm. Kirkland Donald detailing the Air Force’s nuclear problems was just a convenient excuse to fire you?

MW: I think it was.

MT: The Air Force has faced criticism for being reluctant to send more unmanned aerial vehicles into the war theater. Was that another area of dispute with Gates?

MW: Actually, we didn’t have a dispute about the fielding of the unmanned air vehicles. Although it’s been characterized as a dispute, we were actually on the same side.

Finally the Army really understood the benefits of having situational awareness to the battlefield commander. This started an insatiable demand for ... ISR assets. ... Less than two or three years earlier we had been turned down from increasing the Predators because there was no bona fide requirement coming out of the Army.

MT: Wasn’t Gates brought in to fix Iraq, and not as much to worry about the future?

MW: I would say it this way: He was hired to be secretary of defense. ... One of the things he has been doing very heavily is managing the war, but I wouldn’t say that was why he was hired. He was hired to be secretary of defense.

MT: How did you and Gates envision the future, and where was the disconnect?

MW: He thinks the nature of our engagements is going to be these insurgent wars for the next 20 years, and that we ought to maybe focus our resources to provide all the equipment and all the means and methods to combat this insurgent war. And if you need money, where you should go for that money is in that strategic margin that I think he would characterize that we have against all the competition that you could surmise.

[Editor’s note: The ‘strategic margin’ refers to the U.S. air and sea power advantage over other nations.]

I made a big deal about maintaining the strategic margin ... and that we’re going to be out of Iraq pretty soon and we better figure out how not to have an upset whereby we erode the strategic margin to the point where somebody thinks they can take us. ... The way we came at the subject clearly set up a policy differentiation.

MT: Is Gates too closed-minded?

MW: I would offer only that when I was in sessions with him [my] views were not accepted. ... As secretary of the Air Force, I didn’t really feel engaged in the [war]. Everything was a straight line of command and control right through the combatant commanders, and sort of our contribution was a byproduct.

MT: Why has the Air Force held so few senior joint staff positions in recent years?

MW: There’s been an imbalance on the joint staff and there’s been an imbalance in the secretariat in having Air Force ideas brought forward for debate and for implementation. ... I accuse myself of being a poor salesman from the standpoint of being unable to foster the Air Force ideas or being able to bring Air Force personnel into joint staff positions of prominence and even into the secretariat positions. ... There has been little or no progress in that regard.

MT: What should be done about Iraq?

MW: This is now a police action ... and the question is, when does this police action stop? ... I think the Army has done a marvelous job of corralling the insurgency, reducing the strife, creating auras of stability in many of the areas. And I think now is probably a good time to start taking advantage of that. ...

[My withdrawal plan] turns out to be the use of the reachback ... to begin to extract administrative personnel out of Iraq. Essentially if I take a battalion of administrative people out of Iraq, I now take the force protection requirements for that same battalion. And if I can run it all using the Internet in a distance place, why not?

In the same vein that the way the Air Force is currently running unmanned air vehicles from [the continental U.S.], why can’t I run some of the administrative attributes?

It does worry me that we’re beginning to sell 52-inch TVs in the Green Zone. How long are we going to be there? And where is it in our psyche that we must occupy the capital of a country? ... How do we begin to reshape ourselves so that we can maybe steer a course that allows us to reduce our forces but not reduce the firepower that is so necessary for stabilization and governance?

MT: What should you have done differently about the nuclear parts that got shipped to Taiwan?

MW: In 1991, the parts that were shipped ultimately to Taiwan were downgraded from being nuclear controlled to being just security controlled. ... It wasn’t really characterized and controlled as a nuclear item. That having been said, I think one of the things ... I could have done differently is gone back and [looked at] that as to whether all of those parts that were essentially taken off of the nuclear control list should have been re-entered.

MT: What could have avoided the Minot-Barksdale nuclear incident?

MW: I think enforcing “train as you fight” would have helped. ... If we would have managed that and the discipline characteristics as if we were going to war, we would have probably saved ourselves the embarrassment.

MT: What did you think of the Donald report about the Air Force’s nuclear management?

MW: He looked at us from a Navy perspective. ... I think his guys, because of their nuclear submarine background, did not see a shop with things on the floor as being a very good shop because on a nuclear submarine everything has a place and needs to be in that place. So I think they just see things very differently than we do. The fact that we have 500 sites with nuclear components, and they don’t, leads us in different directions about how we delegate responsibility. I think all of that played into the report.

MT: Why do you think the Air Force should buy more F-22s when we have no close competitors for air superiority?

MW: Right now, when ... you’re not sure if the F-35 is going to work, [ending F-22] is a bad decision. It’s introducing a little too much risk into the strategic environment. I’m concerned that [F-35] has not yet gone through testing and that it is at the very point where the F-22 was when it was delayed 10 years. ...

There was a time in a conversation when I was asked about the fact that we’re not going to have peer competitors. ... The likelihood of us engaging a peer competitor is very low. The likelihood of us engaging a peer competitor’s [weapons or equipment, though] is very high, because the market is very rich with sales.

And so I worry about our ability to escape and evade an integrated air defense system in the future if you’re going to restrict the number of fifth-generation airplanes that we might have.

MT: Do you think the drawdown of the Air Force by 40,000 airmen was the right decision?

MW: We had to do it because we would never have gotten started on the issue of recapitalization without showing some pain and strain on behalf of the Air Force. We could not be big and new. We had to be smaller and arguably newer.

MT: How did the Air Force botch the tanker selection process so badly?

MW: I think the Air Force overcomplicated it. They really wanted both competitors to be almost even so everybody had the best chance of [winning]. ...

I think here is one of those cases where Boeing had probably assessed that their prospects were dimming. ... I would say they systematically began to build a case [for a protest], and I’m not sure that they shared everything that they could have shared with the Air Force along the way and essentially were building ... a ‘Pearl Harbor’ file that could be used later [in a protest]. ... There’s a feeling in the Air Force that maybe we were as transparent as we could be and maybe Boeing wasn’t.


To read the full interview, please go here ---> http://www.airforcetimes.com/wynne

Disagreements are not the reason why Wynn and Mosely were fired is becasue of poor leadership. They explain their poor leadership on the differences with the Navy on nuclear views---not true the Navy was blowing the whistle on the poor leadership and Wynn is just trying to save face. Just read about the soaring squadron commander at the Air Force Academy and what they did to the whistleblower who "would not turn his head." Wynn and Moseley got fired because they deserved it. Leadership is from the top and Gates saw through this poor leadership and lack of responsiblity.

Wynn is wrong and cannot grasp what he did wrong. Regarding the earlier post I know what commander you are talking about at the Air Force Academy, he is in charge of the sailplane squadron. He just had a truck roll over with two cadets at 9:30 in the morning and is blaming someone else rather looking at his poor leadership. This commander enjoys blaming others for his cowardly leadership so he does not have to do something. Someone told him about his officers drinking with cadets and this commander did not do anything about it. Someone else also told him about two officers directly ignoring safety regulations and blatent disregard for others well being out of their pure hatred of another officer. He also knows about a lower ranking officer attempting to assault a higher ranking officer and then lying about it. This situation with the sailplane squadron commander at the Air Force Academy is just like Wynn and Moseley and because of all the head turning cannot grasp what is really going on. OSI is supposed to be investigating this accident but nothing will be corrected.

OSI at the Air Force Academy won't do anything to the squadron commander of the sailplanes. The only thing that happens in the Air Force is whistle blowers are punished.

All of the Air Force Academy Cadets know about how the 94th Squadron Commander tells people to turn their head and when they don't they are kicked out of the Squadron. I agree with the earlier statement of nothing is going to this Squadron Commander, just like it says the Air Force does not like whistle blowers.

[Irishduke]

I think this thread got off track a bit--USAFA commanders aside--Gates seems to me to be right about fighting the war we are in rather than buying stuff (pilot's toys like the F-22) for wars we probably will never fight and never need. As far as Wynne being "out of the war" and Gates going directly to combatant commanders--guess what? that's what is supposed to happen...its called the chain of command and was established by Congress to keep service parochialism out of our wars to the degree we can.

As a side note--the USAFA has a skewed view of discipline--its #1 priority is trying to protect its image which explains its rather bizarre history in dealing with various controversial matters. (I served at USAFA for 4 years) That being said, without knowing details, I find it hard to believe that a commander who knowingly allows subordinates to drink and drive would be allowed to "coast" and keep his/her command. Doing the right thing requires reporting the transgression and then walking away knowing you've done all you can do--if others do not do the right thing, or if you are punished for doing the right thing, at least you have your integrity--perhaps the lesson to be learned is that the institution is not worthy of individuals like you.