[ISN] Air Force scales back cyberwar plans

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/13/usaf-scales-back-cyberwar-plans/

By Shaun Waterman 
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 13, 2008

The general in charge of the U.S. Air Force's cyberwarfare effort says 
plans for his unit have been scaled back because staff who would have 
been used to set up a cybercommand will be allocated to the service's 
new nuclear command instead.

Air Force Cyber Command was to be established as a major command 
alongside the service's space, air-combat and other commands -- last 
month. However, those plans were suspended over the summer after Defense 
Secretary Robert M. Gates fired the Air Force's civilian and military 
leaders because of lapses in the security of the nation's nuclear 
arsenal.

Last month, plans for a full-fledged major command for cyberwarfare were 
scrapped.

The Pentagon's Armed Forces News Service reported on Oct. 8 that a 
gathering of the service's leadership in Colorado was told that 
cyberoperations would be a numbered Air Force component -- one step down 
from a major command in organizational terms.

Maj. Gen. William T. Lord, commander of Air Force Cyber Command, told 
United Press International that the change helped solve the 
organizational challenge of creating a new nuclear command "with the 
manpower that was going to be allocated to make cybercommand a major air 
command allocated instead to fix the more pressing problem... [of] 
making sure that people are comfortable that we in fact have our eye on 
the ball of our nuclear enterprise."

[...]


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