Good News! 'Sensitive' Nuclear Missile Parts Lost

Um, I think we've got a little record-keeping problem here.

THE US military has lost more than one thousand "sensitive" nuclear missile parts, officials close to the Pentagon say.

A recent investigation condemning the US military's accidental shipment of nuclear cones to Taiwan also found that the US Air Force doesn't know what happened to many other nuclear parts, The Financial Times reported.

The US Air Force chief of staff and air force secretary were sacked by US Secretary Robert Gates after the investigation.

Mr Gates said the Pentagon would do a stocktake on every piece of nuclear weapon-related parts “to re-establish positive control of these sensitive, classified components”.

“(The investigation discovered) the gradual erosion of nuclear standards and a lack of effective oversight by air force leadership,” Mr Gates said.