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Mullen: New Air Force picks based on talent

Collective talent, more than background, was the primary consideration when Defense Secretary Robert Gates settled on his nominees to fill the top two leadership slots in the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs chairman said Tuesday.

“In my view, you go into this kind of search and decision trying to get the best people,” said Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, speaking with reporters in Washington. “And it’s my belief — and I endorsed this decision — wholly, certainly, from the military standpoint — that that decision has been both wrung out well and made.”

The jobs were vacated when Gates on Friday forced the resignations of the Air Force secretary, Michael Wynne, and chief of staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, over what he said were significant and systemic problems with the security and handling of nuclear weapons materials.

Much has been made of the fact that neither the prospective chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, nor his nominated No. 2, Lt. Gen. William Fraser, is a fighter pilot, although both are fliers. If confirmed, Schwartz, an AC-130 special operations flier, would be the first non-fighter pilot to serve as chief in the past 26 years. Fraser, who currently serves as Mullen’s assistant, is a B-52 bomber pilot.

In a parallel move, Gates recommended that the current vice chief of staff, Gen. Duncan McNabb, take Schwartz’s place as the commander of U.S. Transportation Command. McNabb is a transport aircraft flier with time in both the C-141 and C-17.

Mullen admitted that not having a fighter pilot in one of the top two slots is “certainly an important message” but would not elaborate except to add, “That doesn’t mean fighter guys go away from the Air Force.

“I mean, you can read that a lot of different ways,” Mullen said. “But I can assure you that what drove that more than anything else was the talent search for the best combination and also the need to have somebody go in behind General Schwartz as he left.

“So it was much broader than just, well, these are the signals we want to send, let’s pick the individuals to send them,” Mullen said.

But, Mullen added, “I think it’s also very important that we have somebody like Fraser, who’s got the bomber background, given the reason all this happened, so that his expertise will be applied to fixing this problem.”

The problems cited by Gates included the incident last summer in which a B-52 was mistakenly loaded with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country.

Mullen also noted that Fraser once served as the vice commander at Air Combat Command. “So he’s been around both the bomber and the fighter side as well,” Mullen said.

Mullen said he wasn’t as familiar with Mike Donley, Gates’ choice as the next Air Force secretary, but noted both his background in Army Special Forces as well as his tenure as an Air Force executive — he served as acting Air Force secretary for seven months in 1993. “So he’s got a pretty rich history of serving, both on the military side and the civilian side,” Mullen said.

“So I think it’s a great team. And it comes at a great time.”