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“There simply is no room in our Air Force, and certainly in our nuclear enterprise, for this type of misconduct,” said Udall, the chairman of Armed Services’ strategic forces subcommittee.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has confidence in the majority of men and women in the missile force.

“I’m saddened that a few serious violations have sullied the name of an otherwise honourable group of professionals,” McKeon said.

James said she will travel to each of the Air Force’s three nuclear missile bases next week to learn more about conditions within the missile launch force and the more senior officers who manage them. She suggested that the cheating was confined to this single case involving 34 officers, although numerous missile officers have told the AP confidentially that some feel compelled to cut corners on their monthly proficiency tests because of intense pressure to score at the highest levels to advance in the force.

“I want all of you to know that, based on everything I know today, I have great confidence in the security and the effectiveness of our ICBM force,” James said. “And, very importantly, I want you to know that this was a failure of some of our airmen. It was not a failure of the nuclear mission.”

James, who has been in the job only four weeks, said the entire ICBM launch officer force of about 600 will have been retested by the end of the day Thursday.

Welsh said he knew of no bigger ICBM cheating scandal or launch officer decertification in the history of the missile force, which began operating in 1959. Last spring the Air Force decertified 17 launch officers at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., for a combination of poor performance and bad attitudes; at the time the Air Force said it was the largest-ever one-time sidelining of launch officers. It later said 19 had been decertified; they were held off the job for two months of retraining.