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A panel of defense experts reviewing recent Air Force failures in nuclear stewardship has recommended far-reaching changes to the way the service manages its nuclear mission.

Citing an "unambiguous, dramatic and unacceptable decline in the Air Force's commitment to perform the nuclear mission," the Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management said in a report Friday that the service needs to create a culture of accountability and establish a new centralized command for managing the nuclear mission.

In a Pentagon briefing announcing the findings, the task force's chairman, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, said its members -- who all have expertise in Defense management going back decades -- were surprised by the deterioration of Air Force expertise and capability.

"The erosion had gone much further than we anticipated," he said.

Under the proposed organizational changes, the existing Air Force Space Command would be transformed into an Air Force Strategic Command. All bomber aircraft would be consolidated into a single force assigned to Strategic Command.

As the single major command responsible for the nuclear mission, Strategic Command would advocate for resources, provide clear lines of authority and accountability, and ensure appropriate staffing and expertise at all levels of the nuclear mission, the task force concluded. The bomber force assigned to the command would provide trained bomber forces for conventional missions as well as manage the nuclear deterrent mission.

The task force also recommended that the Air Force:

• Update its nuclear deterrence doctrine, which has not been revised since 1989.
• Overhaul and standardize its entire inspection process and provide adequate staffing, training and budgeting.
• Review deployment, assignment and promotion policies to ensure the service develops qualified personnel and leaders for the nuclear mission.

The task force endorsed a decision by Air Force leaders earlier this year to develop a system to achieve strict inventory control over nuclear weapons. Such a system "should be able to identify and account for the condition and location of all nuclear-related materiel anywhere in the supply chain at any point in time," the task force stated.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates created the panel in June to review the findings of an earlier investigation by Navy Adm. Kirkland Donald into Air Force lapses in nuclear weapons management, as well as review the other military services' nuclear inventory control procedures.

The review was sparked by the discovery earlier this year that forward-section assemblies used on Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles were erroneously shipped to Taiwan in October and November 2006. Not only are such parts highly sensitive and require special handling, but the request from Taiwan actually had been for helicopter batteries.

The discovery of the wrong shipment followed another serious incident in which an Air Force bomber crew mistakenly flew nuclear weapons from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana in August 2007. Together the incidents have undermined international confidence in the Air Force's nuclear deterrent capability, said Schlesinger.

As a result of the Donald review, on June 5 Gates fired the Air Force's top civilian and military leaders, Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Michael Mosley. "The focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted with respect to perhaps its most sensitive mission," Gates said.

The task force reported only on the Air Force portion of its review; the full Defensewide review is to be completed this fall. The panel did not make any recommendations regarding disciplinary actions against what the Donald investigation termed "a substantial number of Air Force general officers and colonels potentially subject to disciplinary measures" for failures of leadership.

Disciplinary measures against culpable officers will be taken by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and acting Secretary Michael Donley, Schlesinger said.

The Air Force currently is implementing more than 180 corrective actions and is analyzing the causes of the erosion of its nuclear mission. Service leaders are reviewing the task force's findings.

"Air Force leaders are now saying the right things," said Schlesinger. "The question is whether there will be sufficient follow-through."