Judicial Watch
Staff
We ask our military officers to embody courage against the enemy on the battlefield, and then reward them with stars and stripes for their efforts. And yet, when two of our nation's own channeled their courage in such a way as to expose corruption among the ranks, their careers were destroyed, raising concerns about the integrity of our military legal system.
JW has asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to investigate the cases of LtCol. Timothy Killam and Col. Ernest Beinhart, two whistleblowers who were subject to reprisals from commanding officers after they exposed waste, fraud and abuse at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, an overseas officer school. JW originally made this request of Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen.
Both LtCol. Killam and Col. Beinhart possess excellent character, professional credentials and performance evaluations. And yet, both officers were targeted for dismissal by their superiors and had their complaints stonewalled by the top officials charged with investigating them.
"The history at the Marshall Center is anyone who brings forward problems is removed. They create a paper trail to provide justification for the removal," said LtCol. Killam in an interview with Marine Corps Times.
In Killam's case, retaliation went far beyond his removal. He was forced to undergo psychiatric tests before being involuntarily transferred to the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.-his reward for exposing mismanagement at Marshall's conference center. Killam filed complaints all the way up the chain of command to then-Defense Secretary Cohen, to no avail. Cohen, of course, was a Clinton appointee.
Col. Beinhart had served as commandant of the Marshal Center College of Strategic Studies and Defense Economics. After he warned his civilian boss Alvin Bernstein to stop spending money on things for which he was not authorized, Beinhart was fired. Beinhart's dismissal came just four months after Bernstein publicly praised him for helping launch the school's new program.
The Pentagon, for its part, is relying upon a convenient and false interpretation of military code to justify its behavior.
Both officers' complaints were filed under 138 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which allows officers to seek redress when targeted by superior officers. In Killam's case, they falsely claim that the wrongs allegedly committed against him were technically not committed by his "commanding officer." Killam counters by saying that his latest complaints involve the failure of the original investigating body to deal with the complaint, not the original indiscretion.
In Beinhart's case, the Pentagon claims Bernstein cannot technically be Beinhart's commanding officer because he is a civilian, yet they cannot to this day tell him who his commanding officer is.
Since most of those responsible for the stonewalling tactics moved on with the change in Administrations, Judicial Watch expects the new regime to review the cases thoroughly.
"We don't believe Secretary Rumsfeld wishes to continue a system that abuses military personnel," said JW President Tom Fitton.