Breaking: Army Secretary resigns.
Breaking: Army Secretary resigns.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced that Army Secretary Francis Harvey will resign. Gates said he is “disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed.”
Full statement below:
Good afternoon. I have two announcements to make. First: Earlier today, Secretary of the Army Dr. Fran Harvey offered his resignation. I have accepted his resignation. Undersecretary of the Army Pete Geren will serve as acting secretary until a new secretary is in place. I thank Dr. Harvey for his distinguished service to the department and to the nation.
Second, later today the Army will name a new permanent commander for the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This flagship institution must have its new leadership in place as quickly as possible. I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed. Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems.
Also, I am concerned that some do not properly understand the need to communicate to the wounded and their families that we have no higher priority than their care; and that addressing their concerns about the quality of their outpatient experience is critically important. Our wounded soldiers and their families have sacrificed much. And they deserve the best we can offer.
Finally, I want to reaffirm my confidence in the staff at Walter Reed and their professionalism and dedication to providing caring treatment. From what I have learned, the problems at Walter Reed appear to be problems of leadership. The Walter Reed doctors, nurses and other staff are among the best and the most caring in the world. They deserve our continued deepest thanks and strongest support. Thank you.
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You guys need to check this video out on youtube (although some of you may already have seen it). It’s a bit old, and I do remember seeing one of better quality, but the editing is fantastic and chillingly carries a to close to reality message.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ccps0GS4NVI
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:11 pmthis goes right back to rumsfeld and bush… it’s no different than abu ghraib… try a little accountability “window-dressing” and see if you can get it to go away… the military chain of command stops with the commander-in-chief, as bush is so fond of calling himself, and it’s the commander-in-chief that needs to take the heat…
And, yes, I DO take it personally
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:17 pmI’m curious: did Dr. Harvey take responsibility, and *that’s* why he’s resigning, or is he being blamed, and his resignation was ‘requested’.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 pmThis entire administration needs to follow Francis Harvey out the door.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pmSee how broken this system is? Anyone who is not a complete croney and lock-stepper has to quit. Even if a good leader was placed in this position, nothing would change.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:20 pmRumsfeld was SecDef for six years. There’s got to be some record of his knowledge about the conditions at Walter Reed. I’d like to know what he did about it (if he did anything) and to what extent he was aware of what was going on.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:20 pmIf this happened six months ago Snowjob would say this Army Sec. resignation had nothing to do with Walter Reed. He merely wanted more time with his family.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pmHe wants out before the results of the 90% under-trained, ill-equipped National Guard and Reserve troops sent into combat booger gets wiped on him.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pmprofmarcus
Absolutely! Since Bush keeps stressing that he’s the Commander In Chief, the War President, and the Decider then the buck most definitely has to stop with him. Further,the military reports directly to the President through its chain of command, not to Congress, so I, unlike people like Don Imus, don’t see this issue as the responsibility of any Congress member. This war and all its aftermath belongs to Bush.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:30 pmC’mon… the mess at Walter Reed is reason for Pres. Bush to resign? Are you folks going to hold EVERY politician to those high standards? If something happens in their ‘chain-of-command’, then they have to resign?
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 pmOk, Maj. Gen. George Weightman who was Commander at Walter Reed only for the past six months has been fired. Sec. of the Army (now resigned) was the person who made that decision, and evidently also appointed Kiley as acting commander. Kiley was in charge from 2002 to 2004. Major General Kenneth L. Farmer, Jr. was the commander at Walter Reed from June 2004 until six months ago. Why are we not hearing anything about him?!?!?!?
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:37 pmThis is a good development. One long overdue.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 pmYes, this goes all the way up the chain of command, through Rumsfeld, and on to Bush.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:40 pmBut like AbuGhraib which was a scandal following a similar path, a few will lose their jobs, but the top guys will remain in place.
There is nothing that will dislodge them – they are there for the duration.
I think Maj.Gen.Farmer has retired, which may make him safe from any repercussions.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pmDAMNNIT, Gates, GET RID OF Kiley, TOO–WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU LILY-LIVERED CREEP!!!!!
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:47 pmbreaking, Gen. Erik Shoomaker was just announced new commander of Walter Reed on CNN.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:54 pmC’mon… the mess at Walter Reed is reason for Pres. Bush to resign? Are you folks going to hold EVERY politician to those high standards? If something happens in their ‘chain-of-command’, then they have to resign?Comment by Dale
Yes. Only if the specific politician holds himself or herself up as morally superior and declares himself or herself as the sole decider. Yes, if answer two applies.
Thanks for playing “What’s My Whine?”
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pmC’mon… the mess at Walter Reed is reason for Pres. Bush to resign? Are you folks going to hold EVERY politician to those high standards? If something happens in their ‘chain-of-command’, then they have to resign?
Comment by Dale
Ok Dale, Chimpy does not have to resign because of the mess at Walter Reed. He can resign because of the clusterf*ck in Iraq.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 pmMarie, Farmer is now the executive vice president and chief operating officer for TriWest Healthcare Alliance. The Phoenix-based corporation partners with the Department of Defense to provide access to health care for 2.8 million members of America’s military family in the 21-state TRICARE West Region. He retired and that’s why Weightman was appointed to be Commander at Walter Reed. So, while he’s retired, it’s just possible that a scandal about him about result in his being fired from TriWest, since they have contracts with DOD. There’s some kind of protectionism going on, since he’s not yet been mentioned.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:57 pmNOW heads are rolling.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:01 pmIs Salome in the room?
There’s some kind of protectionism going on, since he’s not yet been mentioned.
Comment by impeachcheneythenbush
The whole chain of command has been playing “cover my ass” since the day the story broke to a public that is almost ready to “storm the Bastille”
Everybody in my office, even the rabid repukes, are fuming pissed off over the Walter Reed issue, and now over the VA system ( thanks to some links I passed around to veteran activist sites).
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 pmDALE, I just farted. Thought of you. *sigh*
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm[...] ThinkProgress [...]
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pmWhat’s wrong? Didn’t George and Dick like the color of this whitewash? That’s what happens when you send a little incompetant to do a little fascist’s job, I guess.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm#19 impeach
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pmWere that to occur, it would only be fair and just.
#22 – DALE, I just farted. Thought of you. *sigh*
Comment by Cory
Damn you, Cory! You just made me choke Diet Pepsi up my nose!
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:25 pmZooey
I would think by now that your would know that for you TP and any beverage do not mix! (That was an excellent post by Cory!)
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:57 pmI’m waiting to hear Bush say we have to go to war with the hospitals that we have. Heckuva job Francis.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 pmFrom what I have learned, the problems at Walter Reed appear to be problems of leadership.
at least it is a start, admitting that there is a problem of leadership! Hopefully the man can learn alot more.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:19 pmI googled Harvey and what I found was surprising. He was CEO of IT corp, a Carlyle company. Carlyle piled on debt on IT and caused bankruptcy of the IT company WHILE the IT company was getting huge lucrative government contracts for their services.
Now it just seems strange to me that the words Carlyle, government contracts and Harvey are all noted in the same story. I think pappy Bush was or is a board member of Carlyle.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 pmThe recently resigned Secretary of the Army’s main qualification for the job according to his official bio on the DOD website:
“The majority of Secretary Harvey’s career has been spent with corporations that provided products and services to the federal government, particularly the Department of Defense, and included a year of Government Service….
Prior to his appointment as the Secretary of the Army, Secretary Harvey held various professional, management and executive positions within the Westinghouse Corporation from 1969 to 1997, including President of the Electronics Systems Group, President of the Government and Environmental Services Company, and Chief Operating Officer of the multi billion dollar Industries and Technology Group…”
As you can see, he has been living high off the hog of the military industrial complex all his adult life and contributing generously to the Republican War Party. Thus his reward.
Since no mention is made of military service, I assume he has limited contact with the enlisted ranks.
By BushChaney repugnant standards he is the man for the job, doing a heckava job.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pmAs serious as this is its somewhat of a tempest in a teapot. In a rational world the administration would be held to the same level of accountability for fabricating the intelligence used to justify the invasion and its subsequent mismanagement of the Iraq War as was the Secretary of the Army was for Building 18 at Walter Reed. If Bush and/or Cheney had any honor whatsoever they would resign and let the Speaker of the House govern for the next two years. What a pipedream that is. The reality in Bush’s looking glass world is that the administration made, in the words of the senior Senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel, “the worst foreign policy blunder of our lifetime” and views any one engaged in efforts to extricate America from this blunder as defeatist, unpatriotic, terrorist sympathizers. “We f***ed it up but don’t you dare try to fix it and while we’re at we’ll just spend good money after bad allowing more Americans to be killed so that the other dead Americans that came before them will not have died in vain.†The immorality and intellectual dishonesty of this position is truly staggering. Thank God (or the deity or non-deity of your choice) Bush & Co. was not running the show during WWII because if they were we’d either be speaking Japanese or German or both.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am#30..do you know if it’s unusual to put someone in as Secy of the Army (or Navy or Airforce) who has had NO military background? I was not aware of Harvey’s background, but I am honestly floored!
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 pmhttp://www.peace-action.org/
———————————————————————————
To: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
cc: Chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Committee on International Relations
We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose any U.S. military action against Iran. Such military action would inevitably kill large numbers of innocent people, foster even more hatred and international condemnation of the U.S., and dramatically increase the instability of the region. Our own intelligence agencies have concluded the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat, and a war against Iran would add immeasurably more fuel to the fire.
Even if Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon, experts agree that it would take several years. There is no crisis, and our government should not create one with inflammatory rhetoric or military threats. The U.S. has both the time and obligation to work with the international community to fashion a diplomatic resolution to the situation, and the current refusal of U.S. officials to talk directly with Iranian officials cannot possibly help resolve the nuclear standoff, nor contribute to peace in Iraq and the Middle East.
Therefore, we urge you to take all steps necessary to reach a peaceful resolution to the current situation, including direct negotiations without pre-conditions. This is the only way to prevent yet another war, one that would be a calamity of truly global proportions.
———————————————————————–
No War with Iran!
President Bush is now regularly accusing Iran of supporting attacks on U.S. troops, without any evidence, – remember the WMD’s in Iraq, anyone? – adding that “we will seek out and destroy” these networks. Bush has authorized U.S. forces to kill Iranian “operatives” in Iraq, and he is sending nuclear aircraft carriers and missile defense batteries to the Persian Gulf. The unthinkable – a wider war in the Middle East – is unfolding.
John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that any U.S. military move into Iran would be “catastrophically stupid” and “unleash a conflagration like we’ve never heard of before.” We could not possibly agree more.
Resistance to a Bush planned military strike on Iran is growing in Congress, but it needs your help! Sign the petition to Congress below – No War with Iran! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said recently that she would introduce legislation to stop such a strike, so our demand is beginning to get through. But the pressure needs to be much, much stronger to stop a President who has apparently gone mad with war and his own power.
Please know that your email address is for internal purposes only; we will not send it to the petition recipients nor share it with any other organization for any purpose. Thanks also for forwarding this to your friends, colleagues and listserves. We need everyone who wants to bring peace to the Middle East and prevent a war with Iran to join the effort now!
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http://www.peace-action.org/
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:08 pm[...] Breaking: Army Secretary resigns. (tags: Army resignation Veterans war) [...]
March 4th, 2007 at 3:09 am[...] Kiley’s attempts to shift blame contrasts with the statements of other senior military officials: From what I have learned, the problems at Walter Reed appear to be problems of leadership. The Walter Reed doctors, nurses and other staff are among the best and the most caring in the world. [Defense Secretary Robert Gates, 3/2/07] [...]
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