'Inappropriate behaviour' cost US general his nuclear missile command

A US air force general who was fired from command of land-based nuclear missile forces had engaged in "inappropriate behaviour" while on official business in Russia last summer, including heavy drinking, rudeness to his hosts and associating with "suspect" women, according to an investigation report.

The events that led to the dismissal took place while Major General Michael Carey was in Russia in July as head of a US government delegation to a nuclear security training exercise, the report said.

At the time, he was commander of the 20th Air Force, responsible for all 450 of the Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed in five states of the United States.

When Carey was relieved of command in October, the air force said he had engaged in unspecified misbehaviour while on a business trip, but it did not say the episode was in Russia, nor did it indicate the specific allegations against him.

Carey's firing was one of several setbacks for the nuclear force this year. There have been serious security lapses and complaints of low morale and "rot" within the force, as well as an independent assessment of "burn-out" among a sampling of nuclear missile launch officers and security forces.

After the Russia trip, a member of the delegation lodged a complaint about Carey's behaviour. That person, described as a woman staff member in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, asserted to investigators that on the delegation's first night in Moscow, July 15, Carey was drinking and speaking loudly in a hotel lounge about how he is "saving the world" and that his forces suffer from low morale.