ARTICLE: Gates Ousts Top Leaders Of Air Force After Gaffes. (Wall Street Journal)…Yochi J. Dreazen June 6, 2008, Pg. 1
…Beyond the gaffes, the firings are the culmination of a broader dispute between Mr. Gates and the Air Force’s leadership over the service’s strategic direction.
The forced resignations mark an attempt by Mr. Gates to use his remaining time in office to shake up the service, which he believes has failed to adapt to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senior Pentagon officials said the move marked the first time a defense secretary had simultaneously fired the two top leaders of a service like the Air Force. They said Mr. Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt the recent mistakes merited severe penalties.
The immediate trigger for the resignations of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Gen. Michael Moseley, its chief of staff, was the March disclosure that the Air Force had accidentally sent four ballistic-missile fuses to Taiwan 18 months earlier, a discovery that infuriated Chinese officials.
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