Recent Actions Are Seen As Warnings To Generals

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld passed over all of the Army's active-duty generals to tab a retiree as the new chief of staff, the Army's top job. What's more, the new chief comes out of special operations, hardly the traditional path to the top. Some people call the choice a signal to the rest of the Army: Fall in line with Rumsfeld's thinking, or fall behind.

On Wednesday, when the old chief of staff retired, nobody from Rumsfeld's office showed up at the ceremony. Such an absence is highly unusual; outsiders as well as Army people saw it as a snub to the service.

The new chief is Peter J. Schoomaker, who retired three years ago as the four-star head of the U.S. Special Operations Command. He will replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, who retired Wednesday.

The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times say Rumsfeld offered the job to three other generals. First was John Keane, now serving as vice chief of staff. But Keane chose instead to retire to tend to his ailing wife.

Rumsfeld then approached Tommy Franks, who ran the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq as head of the joint U.S. Central Command. But Franks preferred to retire.

Next, Rumsfeld talked to Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, Franks' deputy at CentCom. But Abizaid said he'd rather succeed Franks at CentCom.

So Rumsfeld tapped Schoomaker, 57 - to the delight of Green Beret veteran Gregory Soter.

"I served under him when he ran the Army's Special Operations Command" at Fort Bragg, N.C., said Soter, who retired as a major and now works in the State Department's anti-terrorism office. "He's a great choice."

But in a phone interview Thursday, Soter said other Army people felt otherwise. "I just talked to a Pentagon staff officer who said the brass over there is seething," Soter said.

"They're mad because Schoomaker is Special Ops, outside the Army's mainstream - and because he got pulled out of retirement. A lot of active-duty three- and four-stars had their hearts set on that job."

But Soter said the selection of Schoomaker sent a clear message: "It's as obvious as the sun is bright that he's being put there because Rumsfeld wants changes to make the Army more ready for future threats."

Rumsfeld is widely thought to view the Army as sluggish, hidebound and far too heavy.

Military historian Richard H. Kohn of the University of North Carolina has little affection for Rumsfeld. But he said in a phone interview that the secretary "has an agenda, and he has looked over the leadership of the Army, and he hasn't liked what he's seen. He has to exercise civilian control and find the best person he can for the job - and Schoomaker is certainly qualified."

Less certain of Schoomaker's qualifications is retired Army Col. Jerry Morelock of Fulton, Mo. He suggested that Schoomaker's years in retirement might have eaten into the general's ability to make his mark on the service.

From 1991 to 1994, Morelock worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, getting a close-up look at how generals operate. He said: "What are Schoomaker's contacts within the Army? At that level, you tend to command through the relationships you've had. You can't just tell people to do things - not if you want things done right. They've got to be convinced."

A different angle came from military writer Ralph Peters, who retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel. Peters noted that the Army was about to get a new civilian secretary - James Roche, a former Navy officer who until recently was secretary of the Air Force.

"Roche has to prove himself," Peters said in a phone interview from his home in Warrenton, Va. "The Army is very suspicious of Roche. On the other hand, Schoomaker is very much admired in the Army. So he'll get a honeymoon."

No matter how those interviewed felt about Schoomaker, most thought Shinseki deserved better on his last day in the Army. Although Rumsfeld was traveling abroad, news accounts said his office had sent no high-ranking civilian to represent him at the retirement ceremony.

(A spokesman for the Department of Defense was unable to confirm those accounts. He suggested that the Army be asked whether it had, in fact, invited any high-ranking civilians.

(A spokeswoman for the Army replied, "As a matter of protocol, we do not release the lists of invitees to specific events." Without naming names, she added that several officials, "both civilian and military, were invited to the event."

(At an event Friday marking the Army's 228th birthday, Rumsfeld did weigh in with some kind words for Shinseki. He called the just-retired chief of staff a man of "energy and drive" who "has made a difference.")

Peters noted that a few months back, Shinseki had told Congress that occupying Iraq would take 200,000 soldiers - far more than Rumsfeld and his civilian assistants were talking about. Last week's snipings and shootings of soldiers lend support to Shinseki's estimate.

"Shinseki turned out to be right," Peters said, "and Rumsfeld and his people can't forgive him for being right."

The State Department's Soter said: "It doesn't sound like the kind of thing you do to a four-star officer who has given his adult life to his country - and who left part of one foot in Vietnam. He deserved better than that."

Morelock said from his director's office at Westminster College's Churchill Memorial: "To me, the question isn't who showed up. It's what kind of award Shinseki got. Did he get the Defense Distinguished Service Award? Or did he get an also-ran medal?"

New Army Chief Helped Plan Final Assault at Waco!!!

Rumsfeld Chooses Ret. Former Special Operations Commander to Be Next Army Chief

By Robert Burns, The Associated Press

Jun 10, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a highly unusual move, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has selected a retired four-star general to become the next Army chief of staff, senior defense officials said Tuesday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the selectee is Peter J. Schoomaker, who retired from the Army after commanding the U.S. Special Operations Command from 1997-2000.

The choice, which has not been publicly announced and is subject to confirmation by the Senate, may raise eyebrows inside the military because it is rare for a defense secretary to bypass senior active-duty generals in favor of a retired officer to be the Army's top general.

It was not immediately clear whether Rumsfeld had submitted the Schoomaker selection to the White House for President Bush's approval.

The current chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, is retiring Wednesday after a 38-year career. Tension between Shinseki and Rumsfeld over the pace of the Army's effort to transform into a more mobile, agile fighting force dominated the final two years of Shinseki's four-year term.

Because no successor will have been nominated and confirmed by then, the vice chief of staff, Gen. John Keane, will temporarily assume Shinseki's job when he departs, officials said.

Rumsfeld had tried to persuade Keane to take the top job but he declined for family reasons, officials said. Keane is due to retire this summer.

The Army has suffered an unusual amount of turbulence in leadership positions this year.

In April, Rumsfeld fired Army Secretary Thomas White and picked John Roche, currently the Air Force secretary, to replace him as the top Army civilian official. Roche has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, so the undersecretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, is the acting Army secretary.

Schoomaker, 57, began his Army career in 1969 as a second lieutenant. His first field assignment was in 1970 as a reconnaissance platoon leader at Fort Campbell, Ky. He was trained as an armor officer but switched to the secretive world of special operations in the late 1970s.

Born in Michigan, he graduated from the University of Wyoming, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in education administration and was a star football player.

From 1975-76, he attended the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico, Va., and in February 1978 he became commander of the Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, the highly secretive Delta Force that specializes in counterterrorism missions. He held that command until 1981.

While with Delta Force, he participated in the failed attempt in April 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Tehran.

He later was commander of the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command, both at Fort Bragg, N.C.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAEX5Q3SGD.html

Waco Update: The Delta Force Was There edited by alexander cockburn and jeffrey st. clair

June 1, 1999

Amid Nato military supremo Wesley Clark's onslaught on the civilians of Serbia the question arose: did Clark hone his civilian-killing skills at Waco, where the FBI oversaw the largest single spasm of slaughter of civilians by law enforcement in US history, when nearly a hundred Branch Davidians died amid an assault by tanks, flame-throwers and snipers.

The tanks were from Fort Hood, where Wesley Clark was, in early 1993, commander of the Cavalry Division of the US Army's III Corps. In our last issue we cited a congressional report commissioned in the aftermath of Waco which described how Texas governor Anne Richards had consulted with Clark's number two at Fort Hood. Then, on April 14, there was a summit at the Justice Department in Washington, where Attorney General Janet Reno, top Justice Department and FBI officials and two unnamed senior Army officers reviewed the final assault plan scheduled for April 19.

The two Army officers at the Justice Department that day were Colonel Gerald Boykin, and his superior, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the head of Special Forces at Fort Bragg. Though Clark (who had served with Schoomaker) was not directly involved in the onslaught on the Branch Davidians, the role of the US Army in that affair throws into harsh relief the way prohibitions against the use of the US military for civilian law enforcement can be swiftly by-passed.

Boykin and Schoomacher were present because the Army's Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications Group - popularly known as the Delta Force - had been enlisted as part of the assault team on the Branch Davidian Compound. It appears that President Clinton had signed a waiver of the Posse Comitatus Act, with the precedent being Ronald Reagan's revocation of the Act in 1987, allowing the Delta Force to be involved in suppressing the Atlanta prison riot.

The role of the Delta Force, the identity of the two Army officers, the revocation of Posse Comitatus all form part of the disclosures of a forthcoming documentary film, Waco: A New Revelation, put together by part of the team that produced an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules of Engagement. Following our questions about Wesley Clark's possible involvement at Waco, producer/ researcher Mike McNulty called us with some details of his new documentary - directed by Jason van Fleet and due to be released in July.

After energetic use of Freedom of Information Act enquiries, plus research in three repositories in Texas holding evidence from the Waco inferno, plus other extensive investigations, McNulty and his team have put together an explosive file:

· 28 video tapes from the repositories show that in the final onslaught on the Waco compound were members of the US military in special assault gear and with name tags obscured. As noted above, Clinton's revocation of the Posse Comitatus Act made this presence legal. McNulty isolates Vince Foster as the White House point man for the Waco operation.

McNulty cites Foster's widow as saying that the depression that prompted the White House lawyer's death was fueled by horror at the carnage at Waco for which the White House had given the ultimate green light. Foster was writing a Waco report when he died. McNulty says that some documents about Foster and Waco were among those removed from his office after his death, later to surface in a White house store room sheltering archives of the First Lady.

The film, McNulty says, discloses how the federal assault team placed explosives on top of a compound bunker whither the feds believed the Branch Davidian leaders might flee. Material evidence collected by McNulty shows that the FBI/Delta assault force bombarded the compound with pyrophoric - i.e. fire-causing - projectiles.

Erosion of Posse Comitatus Act prohibitions on the involvement of the US military in law enforcement here is particularly sinister. The congressional report on Waco showed that some Army officers were extremely disturbed at requests for military assistance by the FBI, and there were some acrimonious exchanges at the time. The drug war, needless to say, has been a prime solvent in this process of erosion. One factor is the malign cross-fertilization occurring when these so-called "elite units" - the Army's Combat Application Group, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, the Navy's SEALs - all train together, along with SWAT teams from police forces across the country. Thousands of law enforcement officers have now cut their teeth on the homicidal commando techniques most flagrantly displayed by the killers assembled in the British SAS, members of which were also present at the Waco siege. The Rambo mindset now saturates law enforcement, and even the rangers in Fish and Game Departments now pack heat. Both CounterPunch editors have had the experience of being asked to down their fly rods and produce ID, by young Fish and Game rangers with semi-automatics on their hips. [...] of course the liberal source might be questioned.. http://www.counterpunch.org/waco2.html

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