Air force base resumes intelligence mission suspended after leak scandal

The intelligence mission at a military base in Massachusetts will resume after a hiatus of more than a year, the US Air Force said on Friday. The incident occurred on the Internet, where extensive military secrets were made public and a member of the Air National Guard was convicted.

The resumption of intelligence operations at Otis Air Force Base came after a lengthy recertification process and a review by the Air Force Inspector General last year that found a “culture of complacency” and a “lack of oversight” that allowed Jack Teixeira to seek out, smuggle out and post images of hundreds of classified military documents online until his arrest in April 2023. He shared hundreds of photos of top-secret files in a chatroom on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers, and from there the information spread quickly.

Teixeira, 22, pleaded guilty in federal court in March to six counts of willful withholding and disclosure of classified information and may now face a court-martial after the Air Force filed a separate criminal case this month. He faces up to 16 years in prison in the federal case and could face an additional prison sentence if convicted in a military court.

The reauthorization and resumption of the mission, effective Saturday, was approved by Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command, the Air Force said in a statement. The 102nd Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group has “a new organizational structure” to improve control over its operations after Air Force officials conducted inspections, the service said.

The unit’s active mission is to collect and process classified information for review by senior U.S. military officials.

“The inspection teams, with the participation of headquarters members, assessed outstanding deficiencies and reviewed safety procedures and culture throughout the squadron,” the Air Force said.

The long suspension had raised questions about whether the intelligence mission would be permanently withdrawn from Otis, a former active-duty installation dating to before World War II. Local officials had expressed concerns that the scandal had left the base vulnerable after previous realignments stripped it of its active-duty status in the 1970s and stationed a National Guard fighter jet squadron there in 2008.

Donald Quenneville, a retired Air Force general who served for years at Otis, said he never heard any concern from senior leadership that the suspension of the mission would become permanent, “but you never know.” “It’s always nice to see us come out of these not-so-great events,” he said. “I’m glad they were able to fix the problems that the Air Force found.”

While Teixeira is the only soldier to face criminal charges in connection with the data leak, at least 15 other Otis soldiers were disciplined for failing to respond when they noticed the soldier’s suspicious behavior.

Air Force investigators found that members of his unit “had information on up to four separate cases of his questionable activities,” but those cases were “not fully disclosed above the squadron level,” according to a report released last year. Members of his unit who observed him searching for classified information outside his scope of duties “intentionally failed” to report him, the report said. Some feared that security officials might “overreact” if they did.

Those named included Col. Sean Riley, then commander of the 102nd Intelligence Wing, and Col. Enrique Dovalo, former commander of the subordinate 102nd Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group at Otis. Riley was removed from command while Dovalo had already moved on to another role in the military.