23° Great Falls ›24 minutes 46 seconds ago by Cody Proctor (cody@krtv.com)
GREAT FALLS -- Nine commanders at Malmstrom Air Force Base have been removed from their positions, and 341st Missile Wing commander Colonel Rob Stanley resigned from his post effective on Thursday and will retire from the Air Force.
This comes after an investigation into evidence of cheating on a proficiency test by three Malmstrom Air Force Base missile officers, who were being investigated in an illegal drug probe.
Malmstrom is responsible for operating and maintaining 150 nuclear ICBMs that are positioned in silos across a large area of north-central Montana.
Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Global Strike Command commander Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson held a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday to give an update on the investigation.
General Wilson said, 'While investigating those missileers' personal cell phones as part of the drug investigation, OSI agents found test material on them. This sparked a new investigation that implicated officers for sending, receiving, requesting, or having knowledge of compromised testing material.'
The most recent report on Thursday indicates that up to 100 officers were investigated for cheating or having knowledge of the cheating; of those officers, 91 will be disciplined. There was not sufficient evidence to implicate the remaining nine.
General Wilson said, 'To be more specific, investigators found that four officers were at the center of a ring where test material was shared through test and/or pictures.'
Punishment for all 91 officers will range from letters of counseling to court martials.
The scandal also reached up into Malmstrom's chain of command; nine, commanders, including all three missile squadron commanders, were removed from their positions.
Secretary James said, 'None of these leaders were directly involved in a test compromise, but the command-directed investigation indicated that they failed to provide adequate oversight of their crew force.'
Those commanders will be reassigned to either Global Strike Command or 20th Air Force in administrative roles.
341st Missile Wing Commander Colonel Robert Stanley was not recommended for removal, but announced in an email to his airmen that he has chosen to resign and will retire from the service. In his email, Stanley said, 'I represent this wing to the world, and we let the American people down on my watch.' Stanley had been selected in January for promotion to the rank of Brigadier General. Click here to read more of his email.
Montana Defense Alliance chair David Weissman says the situation with Malmstrom has been unfortunate: 'But maybe people will learn from it and it will be stopped prior to it getting exposed to the degree that it has and they can handle it on base.'
Colonel Tom Wilcox, formerly the commander of the 90th Security Forces Group at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, is now overseeing Malmstrom.
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