Patters

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...595473,00.html

As the Iraq war prepares to enter its fifth year — a war that the Bush administration and its backers contended would be a cakewalk — the first senior military officer has finally had to walk the plank for screwing up.

But critics who have been long calling for some accountability aren't likely to be appeased. The officer taking the fall, after all, wasn't Tommy Franks, the Army general who as chief of Central Command scuttled Anthony Zinni's more robust war plan and agreed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that invasion-lite was the way to go. Nope, he got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. So did former CIA chief George ("Slam Dunk") Tenet and L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, who as Iraqi viceroy fired the entire Iraqi army, a move now widely seen as laying the groundwork for a sustained insurgency.

And it wasn't the fellow who replaced Franks, John Abizaid, a fine Army officer by all accounts but one who also stressed the need for a "light footprint" inside Iraq that merely dragged out the death and dying on both sides. He'll retire soon to praise and pension. And General George Casey, Abizaid's underling and overall commander inside Iraq for the past 30 months, has just won promotion to Army chief of staff.

That's why the firing of Major General George Weightman — the guy running Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the past six months — seems so out of line. The Army brass ousted him 10 days after the Washington Post exposed the squalid living conditions — and lassez-faire attitude from hospital staff — that many outpatients experienced. Weightman was replaced, at least temporarily, by Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the commander of U.S. Medical Command. But there are two things wrong with that, Army insiders say. Weightman was actually trying to fix problems that arose during the tenure of his predecessor in the job — and that man was none other than Kiley.

bmf31c

Another Senior NCO and I discussed this topic this morning. The conditions at WRMC didn't happen within the last 6 months. MG Weightman has been scapegoated. Piss poor....piss poor!

Patters

Hey bfm31c, glad to see you still checking in here. Interesting that you concur with the article. I suppose I can understand why they scapegoated the guy (fingerpointing is an art in Washington), but why the hell replace him with the guy who helped cause the problems in the first place? It doesn't give one much confidence in how things are done.

Real World

P-O-L-I-T-C-S

Firing a guy makes the less than up to speed, like 60% of the public, feel satisfied that something is being done. A measure that's as American as apple pie.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

DarrylS

On the news tonite apparently they have commisioned a group to study the whole VA medical system.. from the hospitals, down to the clinics.. apparently these long neglected services are finally getting some needed attention. But then again might be a white wash.. or might be someone else fault. Does Rumsfield have any responsibility in this??

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bmf31c

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070303/...pe/walter_reed

Somebody else is of the opinion that he was scapegoated. Very interesting.

Fogbuster

Maybe some truth to this. But in some (mostly) bygone cultures, he might have committed hari-kari, been taken out and shot, or had his family taken from him.

CYA is an old tradition.


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wistahpatsfan

What's your point, Buster?
How can this appear to be anything other than the classic scapegoating that it appears to be? Replacing the general with his predecessor? Are you suggesting that it's somehow Weightman's dismissal is not so bad because he didn't put a pistol in his mouth?

This whole thing is another indication - as if we needed one - that the administration and the military brass is without a scrap of honor.
Congress as well has been maliciously negligent.

bmf31c

I'm confused at your reply as well, Fogbuster. The SecDef canned the SecArmy for firing the wrong guy. It seems that SecDef Gates isn't going to allow MG Weightman to take the fall for this. If anything I believe he is demanding true accountability for the matter, instead of the knee-jerk head chop that former SecArmy Harvey tried.

Let me know what you mean please, I'm curious as to what you are saying. Thanks.

wistahpatsfan

I'd love to see one of these generals stand up and raise holy hell when they get "goated" like this. I know they won't out of training, etc. Bush and his cult of pasty-faced wierdos need to get smacked around by one of these guys eventually. I hope we get to see it.