Gates earns his wings

THE US military can ill afford leadership failures in its top positions, as it fights two wars and continues to oversee the nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War. So it is reassuring that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is willing to sack civilian and uniformed officials who fail to measure up. Last week, Gates took the unprecedented step of firing both top Air Force leaders - the service's secretary, Michael Wynne, and its chief of staff, General Michael Moseley.

Gates made the moves after an inquiry showed systemic failures by the Air Force to manage properly the nuclear weapons under its control. Gates had called for the investigation after the Air Force mistakenly shipped high-tech electrical nose cone fuses for missiles to Taiwan. In a previous incident in 2007, a B-52 flew cross-country without anyone aware that it was carrying six armed nuclear cruise missiles.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, there has been much hand-wringing in Washington over whether Russia can manage its nuclear weapons and materials. This has made the two Air Force mishaps doubly embarrassing.

Ideally, a new president will strive in talks with Moscow to reduce both nations' stockpiles of weapons, but for now each side has to make sure its commanders maintain firm control over the warheads.

Last year Gates showed he would hold officials accountable by firing the Army secretary, Francis Harvey, over the deplorable conditions in the outpatient facilities of Walter Reed. He also chose not to reappoint two officials whom he held responsible in part for mistaken decisions in the Iraq war: General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General John Abizaid, commander of US Mideast forces. Especially compared with the fatalism of Donald Rumsfeld - who infamously declared that "you go to war with the Army you have" - Gates's insistence on high standards is just what the military needs.