[2] Keys was responsible for organizing, training, equipping and maintaining combat-ready forces for rapid deployment and employment, while ensuring strategic air defense forces are ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime defense.

ACC can also be called upon to assist national agencies with intelligence, surveillance and crisis response capabilities.

By long-standing tradition, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been allowed to select his own top subordinates, but Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld adopted a sharply different practice of personally interviewing all candidates for three- and four-star rank.

Rumsfeld vetoed Keys' appointment after two interviews, forcing Myers to select Lieutenant General Norton A. Schwartz instead.

The failure of Keys' nomination was subsequently recounted by senior military officers as an illustration of strained civilian-military relations at the Pentagon under Rumsfeld's leadership.