Hoo-ah: Defense chief asks two Air Force officials to resign

In a stunning move after several embarrassing incidents within the Air Force, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Michael Moseley to step down, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.

A public announcement on the matter was expected Thursday and there was no immediate word on who would be named to fill the vacating posts.

The Air Force has been involved in several high-profile scandals in the last year.

In August, the Air Force mistakenly and unknowingly flew a B-52 bomber armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

That incident and another involving the delivery of mistaken ballistic missile fuses to Taiwan triggered an investigation of nuclear weapons handling, the results of which played a significant role in Gates' decision, the official said.

Other troubles include a recent Pentagon inspector general report that found service leaders failed to follow fair and open bidding procedures in awarding a $50 million contract to promote the Thunderbirds aerial stunt team in 2005.

The IG report was critical of Moseley and prompted Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to suggest firing or demoting the service chief. "A corrosive command climate that leads to major wrongdoing is something a commander should be held accountable for nearly in the same way as direct illegality," McCaskill wrote in a letter to Wynne.

Meanwhile, Gates and the Air Force have been at odds over the future of the service's F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet program. In defiance of the traditional chain of command, the Air Force has made no bones about publicly pushing for more F/A-22s despite Gates' concerns that doing so would jeopardize the Joint Strike Fighter program.

Wynne and Moseley will not be the first high-profile officials to step down during Gates' brief tenure as Defense secretary. In March 2007, Army Secretary Frances Harvey -- who, like Wynne and Moseley, assumed his post when Gates' predecessor Donald Rumsfeld led the Pentagon -- stepped down after revelations of substandard conditions for wounded soldiers undergoing treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.