DENVER -- It's an about face for the Air Force Team investigating the sexual assault scandal at the Air Force Academy.

The team was ordered to return to Colorado less than 24 hours after 7NEWS Investigates revealed that investigators never talked to any rape victims during their 10-day mission at the academy.

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Once 7NEWS learned from sources inside the academy that cadet victims had been virtually ignored, we called Sen. Wayne Allard, whose staff has been in close contact with many of those victims still at the academy.

The senator publicly called into question the validity of the investigation and on Tuesday afternoon, the Secretary of the Air Force reversed his field.

Air Force Secretary James Roche told 7NEWS Tuesday that the team would return to Colorado Springs to speak to victims and officials at an off-base rape crisis center where many women cadets sought help.

"I think they decided to send it back because they had read the articles and they had been made aware of the program or your comments last night," Allard told 7NEWS. "(The Air Force team) didn't have a good reason as to why they didn't speak to victims and they didn't have a good reason as to why they hadn't interviewed individuals at the crisis center."

Roche told 7NEWS that he now understands there is more to be done and that his team must work through Allard's office and the rape crisis center to contact victims.

"We can't, once we have a name, go approach that person because it would violate their privacy," Roche said. "But what we can do is ask them, would they contact some of the women and say, 'Look, the headquarters at Air Force would want to speak with you.'"

Roche said the Air Force team will specifically meet privately with senior women cadets to find out what it has been like for them over the past four years.

"We understand there may be a couple of victims who are still at the academy. If we can arrange it, and if it's OK with these young women, we would like to interview them," Roche said.

Staff at TESSA, the main rape and domestic abuse safe house in Colorado Springs, have said they counseled 22 female cadets in the past 15 years who reported being raped.

Roche and top Air Force commanders have vowed to find out the truth and make sure victims are not punished for reporting rapes. Some of the cadets who have reported rapes said they were reprimanded and eventually drummed out of the academy.

"The (Air Force ) has to understand that there are a number of us that will be looking over their shoulders and in fact, I am, as of today, finding a number of senators who have begun to come to me and report that within their states they are having individuals report to them concerns about rape," Allard said. "(The story) seems to expanding every day."

"As we move forward with the facts, and you move forward with your investigation, what we are finding out, I am convinced this is worse than Tailhook, and this is a serious problem and the Air Force has to learn to deal with it," Allard told 7NEWS.

Roche said that the separate, independent Air Force Inspector General's investigation is now getting under way. Inspectors will begin reviewing every officially reported case and will grant confidentiality to women who want to come forward to report sexual assault.

Meanwhile, in the academy, sources told 7NEWS the climate between many male and female cadets is tense because there is disbelief on the part of some cadets that their classmates are telling the truth about sexual assaults.

And of course that has been the problem,7NEWS reported. If a victim talks, she is seen as disloyal and a traitor to her classmates and that is the culture the Air Force secretary said has to change.

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