Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey has resigned in the wake of the Walter Reed hospital scandal

CNN ^ | March 02, 2007 | CNN.Com

[RDTF]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey resigned Friday in the wake of recent reports of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a key facility treating troops wounded in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Harvey's resignation at the Pentagon, just a day after Harvey removed the hospital's commander, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, from his post.

A statement from the Army said it had "lost trust and confidence in the commander's leadership."

Harvey had been the Army's top civilian official since November 2004. Before President Bush appointed him to the position, he spent much of his career working for defense contractors, according his Army biography.

Earlier Friday, Bush said he is "deeply troubled" by the reports from Walter Reed and will form a bipartisan panel to assess medical care for wounded U.S. service members.

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[RDTF]

Just a breaking news banner at the moment

[isthisnickcool]

Dump Nicholson next!

[tsmith130]

Just broke on Fox too.

[theDentist]

Did he resign or was he informed that his resignation was accepted?

[pabianice]

I guess Gates is next, then Cheney...

[zarf]

Washington Post hit the ships magazine for sure.

A positive media coup.

[antiRepublicrat]

Isn't he the one who just fired the general in charge of the hospital? My, the feces is rolling uphill.

[petro45acp]

Could also be the District of Clodumbia making sure that Walter Reed is up to snuff when the military turns it over to them.

[lilylangtree]

Agree with you.

[Justa]

Government by the media, for the media and of the media.

[alloysteel]

More politics as blood sport.

What, exactly, is the problem at Walter Reed? Has it turned into aome kind of "rendition facility", where the inmates are confronted with personal tortures and inhuman conditions? Or is it a funding problem?

How long before the lamestream media is turning this into another Abu Ghraib?

[OldFriend]

If you saw the pictures you wouldn't be so quick to blame the messenger. What a damned disgrace.

Perhaps congress could stop taking some of their damned junkets and put the money towards the out patient facilities.

[Cagey]

Thank you.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Holy cow! That's two Army Secretaries fired in 5 years!

The Army has been pretty screwed up in various ways for a while.

I've got 16 years in. I love the Army, but it breaks my heart sometimes too....

[Alter Kaker]

Isn't he the one who just fired the general in charge of the hospital? My, the feces is rolling uphill.

The heads aren't rolling because of the Walter Reed "scandal," they're rolling because this is an easy way for Gates to trim some dead weight and put his people at the top. Scandals are great for institutional housekeeping.

[dk/coro]

LOL...All kinds of reasons the ARMY is NOT the Senior Service. *S*

(Just had to get that one in, but the Walter Reed fiasco is a National Disgrace of the first order.)

[PhilCollins]

Whom should his replacement be? I hope Bush nominates ex-Congressman Walter Jones. He was in the national guard, 1967-'71, and he was a congressman from North Carolina, 1995-2007.

[OldFriend]

you have freepmail

[af_vet_rr]

Did he resign or was he informed that his resignation was accepted?

There are some things that are starting to smell fishy....the problems at WRAMC (and other places) have been going on for well over a year, according to friends and family, as well as several FReepers who had direct knowledge (i.e. they went through there or had a relative who went through ). Some have claimed several years. The only thing that's changed, is that people outside of immediate family and friends saw the problems when people finally got fed up and went to the media.

My opinion, and this is only my opinion, he wouldn't be resigning unless somebody had brought the problems to his attention a ways back, and he sat on them. At some point, he either realized it would come out, or as theDentist asks, perhaps he was informed that his resignation was accepted. Perhaps Gates found out that Harvey knew about the problems, and they weren't corrected.

[Elsie]

Walter Reed...

A subset of what our wonderful Gummint supplied medical stuff will be like in the future!