-Caveat Lector-
Defense memo ordered staff to rebut Schwarzkopf
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Pentagon civilian employees were ordered in a memo to come up
with data to rebut statements by retired Gen. H. Norman
Schwarzkopf that military readiness dropped during President
Clinton's watch.
The urgent Aug. 3 memo went to 17 workers in the Pentagon office
concerned with personnel and readiness the day after the Desert
Storm commander spoke to the Republican National Convention via
satellite from a decommissioned battleship.
The memo asked them to assemble — in a matter of hours —data on
quality of life issues and said the importance of the task was
"high."
The memo has raised questions among some Defense Department
workers as to whether the order injected presidential politics
into what is supposed to be a nonpartisan office.
The Pentagon denies the charge.
The memo explicitly mobilizes civilians to gather data that only
supports one point of view — the White House's and, by extension,
that of Vice President Al Gore. The memo does not ask for any
information that would support the criticisms made by Republican
presidential nominee George W. Bush.
The order asks that data immediately be sent to Victor Vasquez,
deputy assistant secretary of defense for personnel, support,
families and education.
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times,
is titled, "Reclama [response] to Schwarzkopf/ Republican claim
that military Qol [quality of life] is worse today."
The memo stated: "The front office has asked for information by
COB [close of business] today to rebut Republican convention
statements that the military's Qol is worse today than it was 10
years ago (or during the current administration's leadership
watch.) Please send bullets to me for Mr. Vasquez to review by
1400 [2 p.m.]. Focus on achievements, funding figures, all Qol
[quality of life] measures, per capita, etc. Thanks in advance
for your timely reply."
A follow-up memo carries the notation "negative replies are
required," which means Mr. Vasquez wanted to ensure that
everyone saw the request and attempted to find data. If no data
turned up, the employee was required to respond.
A Pentagon spokesman yesterday defended the memo. He said that
during "this partisan atmosphere" the Pentagon has stayed out of
the presidential debate. But it believed Gen. Schwarzkopf
uttered errors in facts that had to be corrected.
Mr. Vasquez issued a statement to The Times:
"I felt that retired Gen. Schwarzkopf had it very wrong in
several areas. I felt that our current DOD team — civilian and
uniformed military — had accomplished much more than it was being
given credit for. So to set the record straight, I asked my
staff to gather specific, factual data to rebut. I would have
done the same to correct the record no matter who was making
these statements."
Some defense workers familiar with the memo said it seemed to be
politically motivated because it only requested information
supportive of Mr. Gore, the Democratic candidate.
"When an executive branch employee orders subordinates to gin up
data to support one political candidate over another, this is
unconscionable and beyond the pale," said a Pentagon employee,
who asked not to be named. "[The memo writer] clearly forgot
[his] salary is paid by our citizens, not by the Democratic
Party."
Since Mr. Bush raised military preparedness as the campaign
issue, the debate has permeated the Pentagon. The top brass fret
over publicly discussing the issue, fearful they could offend
Republicans or the White House — depending on how they describe
the problem.
The anonymous Pentagon official said that since the campaign
began "I have seen similar efforts to spin the facts in such a
way as to hide the truth. Instead of saying 'give us data to
help the VP,' we are told to 'provide data to show that things
are getting better over the last two years, which ignores the
fact that things hit rock bottom four years ago; hence, the only
way to go was up."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are scheduled to testify today before
the Senate and House Armed Services committees. It was roughly
two years ago that the chiefs of the Air Force, Army, Marine
Corps and Navy acknowledged before the same committees that
combat readiness had slipped severely and asked for billions of
dollars in new funds.
Military analysts blame the drop-off on the fact the defense
budget came down sharply in the 1990s at the same time Mr.
Clinton sent U.S. troops on a peacetime record number of
peacekeeping and war missions.
Officers complain of old equipment, poor housing, scarce spare
parts, lack of training time and difficulty retaining top
personnel.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said yesterday the chiefs are
free to speak their minds.
"The only instructions that I've given to the members of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff is to go up and tell the members of
Congress what the facts are," Mr. Cohen said. "They are free to
say exactly what they feel is necessary in order to protect the
American people's national security interests."
He said that combined increases proposed by Mr. Clinton and
Congress will boost defense spending by $180 billion the next
five years.
"There are still things that need to be done," the defense
secretary said. "I think the chiefs will testify that we have
addressed some of the readiness concerns. We have addressed the
issue of the procurement needs. . . . I think that they will
indicate that more will have to be done in the future to address
real property maintenance and infrastructure, and that we will
need to address some of the shortfalls that they will identify."
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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