Minot Air Force Base, N.D. (AP) Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will visit Minot Air Force Base Friday to tour missile facilities.
Base officials say Hagel and Secretary of The Air Force Deborah Lee James will meet with a group of airmen to discuss the "safety, security and effectiveness'' of some of the weapons housed at the base.
For more than 18 months, the Associated Press has documented evidence of security problems, low morale and other troubles in the nation's nuclear missile corps. The Minot base has been at the center of the problems that led Hagel to launch an independent investigation last winter into the troubled nuke corps.
Nearly two dozen launch officers at the Minot base were temporarily taken off duty last year and given weeks of remedial training after being found unfit to perform. Last week, the air force fired a missile squadron commander and reassigned a vice commander.