MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AP) – The Pentagon’s point man for fixing what ails the nation’s nuclear forces came to this remote air base to get a feel for nuclear missile duty in an inhospitable climate.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work got the feel the moment he arrived Tuesday: a slap-in-the-face kind of cold, energized by an icy wind. He joked before arriving that veterans told him February was the perfect time for his first visit because, “If you don’t go to Minot in the winter, you’re a wimp.”
By the time he ventured out to the missile fields Wednesday the temperature had dropped to 2 degrees Farenheit.
What concerns Work more than the harsh weather, however, is Minot’s worrisome history of missteps with the nuclear missiles it houses and whether the fixes he’s overseeing will be as durable as Minot’s reputation for hard winters.
Work, a retired Marine colonel, was assigned that oversight duty by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who ordered a top-to-bottom overhaul of the nuclear force last November just days before he announced his resignation. Ashton Carter, who happens to be a nuclear weapons expert, is expected to become Work’s new boss next week.