Posted on 06/04/2004 9:23:39 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Shoplifting Charge Dogs Iraq General
Military Sources: Gen. Karpinski Caught Stealing Perfume In 2002
Jun 3, 2004 5:45 am US/Central
NEW YORK (CBS) An American general caught up in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is now at the center of a new controversy involving allegations about her past, but she's calling it a smear campaign.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who claims she has been made a scapegoat for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, is the subject of an investigation by the Army Inspector General involving an alleged shoplifting incident in October of 2002, one year before the abuses began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.
According to military sources, Karpinski was caught shoplifting a $22 bottle of perfume from a military department store ?or PX ?at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
When CBS News asked her about it, she said it never happened.
When CBS' Martin asked if Karpinski denied she was ever arrested or picked up in the MacDill Air Force Base store for shoplifting, she responded, "That's correct."
Sources say an Air Force report details the shoplifting incident, but Pentagon officials refuse all comment, saying that would violate Karpinski's rights under the Privacy Act.
Karpinski says if such a document exists, it's a forgery designed to discredit her for speaking out.
Karpinski was a colonel at the time of the alleged shoplifting, but when she showed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld around Abu Ghraib, she was wearing the one star of a brigadier general.
The Army is investigating how ?despite the shoplifting report ?she was promoted and placed in command of all the prisons in Iraq.
Sources say Karpinski was able to go into counseling and do community service because she was a first-time offender and the dollar amount was so small. That apparently kept the incident out of court records and her service file.
But Army officers say it still should have surfaced in the course of background checks that normally include questionnaires asking if you've been arrested in the past seven years. Whether that lapse was the Army's fault or Karpinski's is now under investigation. Her attorney promises she will cooperate fully in any investigation.
I heard last week that Karpinsky was also involved in four separate incidences of fraternization, where she was the junior partner and her superiors were disciplined but she was not. This is while she was regular army. The retired officer who was speaking about the issue said that he didn't know how she got promoted within the guard with that on her record.
A bathtub full of perfume wouldn't help that thing. Ick.
She looks like one of those nazi women guards at Aushwichtz.
No doubt she self-justified her lying by saying to herself, "If the court records were expunged then it never really happened at all."
Which is, of course, a lie.
Military "justice" tends to be much faster moving than in civilian life. There are far fewer opportunities for delays which can sometimes help the defendant.
It would be my guess, if there is truth to this report, that the real "target" of the investigation is Karpinski's commanding officer at the time of the original report of the incident. What is being investigated would then be a "coverup" or inappropriate handling by her commanding officer.
If this report is false, then it would be highly damaging to a person's military career and would open up the reporter to financial accountability.
This doesn't ring true.
A member of the military shoplifting from a PX (or BX) would not be facing civilian justice. This would seem to be a matter entirely within the jurisdiction of military justice.
Military Police would have been called, the facts would have been recorded by them, and the report would be forwarded to Karpinski's commanding officer for further action. The commanding officer would make a determination of what punishment might be appropriate and that would determine what process would be carried out.
For this charge against a full colonel, I can't imagine that there is any option other than exoneration due to lack of evidence or punishment including resignation from the military.
Suggesting that a high-ranking officer can just complete some form of "community service" and then proceed to be responsible for the lives of thousands of soldiers in combat is ridiculous. If her commanding officer chose to believe that she was not guilty, it would have to have been based on a combination of a good record on her part and doubtful circumstances in the report.
Just saying "I forgot that I had put the bottle in my pocket" would not be sufficient to relieve her of accountability for not having paid. There are so many people competing for general's stars that there is little reason to overlook even slight character flaws.
Perfume....Looking at her....I smell coverup!!
I thought the same thing-- but it was about the dogs stealing honeybuns at the local 7-11.
Could you explain the "frocked" thing?
Also early in the thread it is pointed out that her "offense" was in 2002 and that she was a Col. - so she got her Star from the Bush Administration...right?
Finally, I saw her interviewed on TV recently and other than protesting her innocense she mentioned one thing that I took note of: She was in command of all of the detention centers and her office and quarters were 40 miles from Abu Ghraib. I spent four years in the military and I never heard of a General Officer pulling any surprise visits between midnight and 4AM anywhere.
Notwithstanding that Lindsay Graham is an R and a reservist Col. JAG, he made his mantra "I don't want to see this confined to a few privates and sergents" long before he had any more facts than we Freepers had. I'm inclined to give Gen. Karpinski the benefit of the doubt until I hear more evidence.
To explain how the "troubled" VIP situation is handled with ranking officers...the wing or post commander usually makes a decision to simply address the individual verbally, and then hide or destroy the report. In fact, its rare that the whole situation goes past the base MP/SP commander.
To relate a similar story in Panama in the 1980s...the vice wing commander was arrested late at night on the local army post for DWI. It would normally be the end of a career, but the MPs called their Major up and he quickly came over...took possession of the commander, and drove him home. He thought that was the end of the episode, but discovered the next day that his MP admin folks had typed up the whole episode in the local blotter, and sent it to 10 adressess. They were all told to write a new blotter, and retrieve all of the copies. When they came to a particuliar air force office, and attempted to retrieve the nightly blotter...they made a copy and then went through the whole original to find out why the replacement occurred.
Bottom line...you can't hide these episodes...everyone keeps copies and names about these incidents.
She needs a lot more than perfume. .....a helluva lot more.
I suggest you skip over the post you find undesireable and move on. Good bye.
You dishonour our military with those words.
I was talking with two people - one a very senior Army Chief Warrant Officer in the counter-intell field, and the other a recently-retired NSA guy. The CWO had a run-in with her several years ago at A.P. Hill in Virginia, when she tried blaming his CI unit of not giving her unit proper training in the handling of prisoners during a field exercise. Fortunately, he had all the necessary documentation to disprove her. The "frocked" rank is the same as a battlefield promotion as I understand it, but I'm not a military vet so you'll have to pardon my lack of knowing the exact military terminology. I think she got her star under Clinton, or at least the paperwork was started under them. Either way it doesn't really matter - the Army Reserve gets pressure from Congress and others to make sure there is "equality" in the ranks.
Well, as George Orwell would say, some are more equal than others.
I think you are right!
$22 perfume? She uses the cheap stuff.
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