© Reuters / Mark WilsonU.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
Two United States Air Force officers involved in the nation's nuclear missile program have been stripped of their security clearances and temporarily suspended while the military investigates allegations involving illegal drugs.
The two men - both officers at a Montana facility where the Pentagon's Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles are controlled from - are
suspected of possessing narcotics, representatives for the military admitted to reporters late Thursday. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations has opened a probe into the allegations, and both unnamed officers have in the interim been relieved of their access to classified information.
News of the investigation broke on Thursday moments before Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was set to deliver what the Associated Press considered a "
carefully planned pep talk" to missilers at one of the two other facilities in the country that hosts ICBM forces amid reports of low morale within their ranks.
Speaking directly to the troops at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Nebraska , Hagel told the missilers,
"We depend on your professionalism.""You are doing something of great importance to the world," the AP quoted Hagel as saying.
"You have chosen a profession where there is no room for error - none.""They do feel unappreciated many times," he told members of the press after the engagement, the
Los Angeles Times reported.
"They are stuck out in areas where not a lot of attention is paid. And I know they wonder more than occasionally if anybody's paying attention."