The Air Force achieved a 99.9 percent success rate in its most recent semi-annual nuclear-related inventory, and though the number shows significant progress in the nuclear enterprise, it’s still not good enough. “We’ll keep working at it until we reach our goal of 100-percent [accountability], and then we will maintain that,” said Gen. Donald Hoffman during an AFA-sponsored presentation Wednesday in Arlington, Va. These inventories started with items internal to the Air Force and are so thorough that they even include static displays inside museums, said Hoffman. The most recent inventory expanded to the contractor support enterprise. The unaccounted items mostly included stuff that had been in the inventory for a while, but were not “on the books,” so officials are working with contractors to create an information system that can log and track all the parts of the system when they are not under Air Force control. “There are a lot of stock numbers at a lot of places, but we have confidence now that we know where our nuclear-related stuff is,” Hoffman said.
The design of the launch facilities for the Air Force’s new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile are likely to undergo major revision, posing yet another challenge for the much-delayed and over-budget program to modernize the land-based component of America’s nuclear triad, officials said.