Shoplifting Charge Dogs Iraq General(Karpinski)

CBS (channel 11 Dallas/Fort Worth) ^ | 06/03/04 | N/A

[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.

[leadpenny]

When the BG promotion list comes out, those on it are to be promoted sequentiality. That's how date-of-rank comes into play. Frocking is done when someone is put into a job that calls for a specific rank. Her date of rank would still fall in line with the sequence of the promotion list.

[leadpenny]

All good points. When I worked at Army Selection Boards (many years ago) the BG board ran across an 06 who had received a Letter of Reprimand for shoplifting a set of uniform unit crests at the PX while attending the Army War College. It made the boards task easy. They just voted him down with a recommendation for him to "Show Cause" for continued service. L'sOR and GO Article 15's are common ways commanders send messages to selection boards.

In Karpinski's case, I understand she was already on the promotion list. She fell through the cracks. There is no way she would have stayed on the BG promotion list unless someone high up overrode DA.

[BigWaveBetty]

Not even free perfume could help that woman. Bless her heart.

[ThanhPhero]

Clinton dishonored the military by decimating the officer corps.Remember Tailhook? Well the sackings and the forced retirements did not end with the admirals but went through all the services.

[Uncle Meat]

She looks like Henrietta,the witch in the fruit cellar,in The Evil Dead 2.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

About the time Tail Hook was all you heard about I found out that the granddaughter of a friend was being "Given" to other Navy Officers by her father, a Navy Officer, at conventions etc.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful 13 year old who looked 19 or 20, and she never told her grandmother who was raising her, she told a Male Cousin with whom she was also having sex. He told Grandma and the proverbial you know what hit the fan.

But, really nothing ever happened. Everyone was intimidated by the Officer and Gentleman and his gang Grandma took the girl and left the state.

A real shock to my system, as I was raising a granddaughter who was a friend of the girl in question and would have castrated the Bastard and his friends!

[ThanhPhero]

The forceouts were not limited to the participants in that annual event which should have been scotched years earlier. Clinton found he had a good thing going and spent a couple of years eliminating officers who were not suitable for his new military, one that wouldn't fight wars any more but would perform social services around the world. Initially he eliminated all the flight admirals whether they had been to Tailhook or not. Those were the ones with the experience and the knowledge of the aircraft.Then it just moved on through the rest of the military.

[hinckley buzzard]

SHE'S BEING SCAPEGOATED !!!11!!
IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT !11!


I love the concept of a general officer "being scapegoated" for actions taken by members of the enlisted ranks under her direct command.

[CyberAnt]

Sorry .. this is not the Clinton Pentagon. And .. Linda Tripp was not a member of the military.

I don't approve of what the Pentagon did to Linda .. but it was the Clinton people who did it, and this incident has no relation to the Karpinsky issue.

[dancusa]

That is definitely nine miles of rough road.

[HenryLeeII]

Okay, I spoke with my source - a very senior chief warrant officer I'm very familiar with and trust implicity, who has had direct dealings with Karpinski, and what he said is that being "frocked" is passing a promotions board and being considered "promotable" but not yet being given the rank officially. Also, depending on the circumstances, the frocked officer can wear the insignia of the higher rank and be referred to such, for a given period of time. So, she is technically a "colonel (P)" - "colonel promotable." This is similar to the "battlefield promotions" you hear about when someone shoots from major to colonel to general in a matter of weeks or months, and then comes back down to a lower rank after the war or campaign ends.

[TC Rider]

If this pig lifted a $22 bottle of perfume, I'm betting it was in a quart bottle. Now who could she smelling nice for in South Florida? Reno?

[Non-Sequitur]

The only difference between what he did and shat Stalin did is he didn't shoot the officers. Now we are trying to fight a war with an army staffed by Clinton. In that sense, it IS Clinton's army.

So you're saying that "Clinton's Army" did a pretty good job of kicking the crap out of Saddam Hussein?

[ThanhPhero]

To some extent that is true, but Clinton could not have done this war at all. The women clogging up the supply chains and being a terrific additional cost is Clinton's army which W has not chosn to fix. The officer corps is pretty thin and W's people have managed to get the best that are left into the proper positions and the promotions are filling the holes. In one respect all the cuts of the Clinton era improved today's army by kind of clearing the decks for the new stuff. It Algore had succeeded the cigar warrior, of course the decks would have been cleared right off the ship and Algore would be clearing the hold.

[Positive]

Hi - You caused me to google "frocked," I found slight differences in what your friend told you.

According to what I found, when a Colonel is nominated by the President for promotion to Brigadier General or Generals are nominated for additional stars and passed by the Congress, they are called Brigadier General Select or Brigadier General Frocked. They are given a "line number" which specifies when the promotion will take effect. Often until that date they are pinned with their star(s) and addressed as General but they continue to receive Colonel pay and officially their rank is Colonel(P).

I was in the military and this is completely different from a "field promotion." In fact I don't believe there have been any field promotions since WWII. Those are given as implied in the field and usually only when the manpower resources are being depleted.