The parade of reports criticizing the Air Force’s ability to handle nuclear weapons kept rolling in on Jan. 8 as the Defense Science Board issued a stinging rebuke of Air Force nuclear inspections.

The board — organized under the Office of the Secretary of Defense — picked apart the Air Force’s nuclear inspection architecture, faulting it for not alerting leaders to the service’s nuclear erosion and recommended the Defense Threat Reduction Agency be empowered to revitalize the Air Force’s nuclear inspection process.

Meanwhile, DSB members, who have extensive nuclear backgrounds in the Air Force and Navy, found few faults with the Navy’s nuclear inspection process.

Board members questioned the credibility of Air Force nuclear inspections after service inspectors passed five nuclear units in 2007 and 2008 even after inspections done by the DTRA, who inspected those same units at the same time, had failed them.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and its partners have shortchanged Afghanistan by focusing on short-term goals pursued without a cohesive strategy or a clear understanding of the way the poor, decentralized country works, an independent study concludes.

The incoming Obama administration should refocus the U.S. war and rebuilding effort in Afghanistan and think of the project as the work of a decade at least, according to the report compiled by the United States Institute of Peace.

The assessment was set for release Thursday at a conference to be attended by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David Petraeus, who is in charge of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Petraeus’ own review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is expected to be presented to Obama a week after he takes office Jan. 20. The plan would shift the focus from the waning fight in Iraq to the escalating Afghan battle.

An Air Force-wide audit found the service’s fitness program is failing to keep airmen fit year-round.

The fitness program “did not effectively promote a healthy lifestyle,” and unit commanders did not give airmen enough time to work out while not cracking down on airmen who failed PT tests, according to a December report released by the Air Force Audit Agency.

The agency found 35 percent of the airmen it reviewed had gained a significant amount of weight after their annual PT test, leading to the conclusion that the fitness program promoted a “fit to test” culture — not the “fit to fight” culture Air Force leaders had hoped for.

Of the 321 airmen whose PT tests the agency reviewed, 111 gained an average of nine pounds just 60 days after completing their PT test, according to the report. At RAF Lakenheath, England, nine out of 23 airmen reviewed gained an average of 15 pounds.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of an airman who has been on the lam for almost three months.

Airman Basic Jeremy Parrott, 29, was a few months into a three-year sentence for possessing child pornography when he escaped Sept. 24 from RAF Lakenheath, England, after a medical appointment at the base hospital.