Pentagon Explanation a Public Relations Ploy, Says Retired AF Officer
by Chad Groening and Jody Brown
December 15, 2004
(AgapePress) - A former member of the faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy says he doesn't agree with a new Pentagon report dealing with reported sexual abuse problems at the Colorado Springs facility during and after his time there.The Pentagon report was written by Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz and given to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month. In that report, Schmitz stated that "the overall cause of sexual assault problems" at the Academy was "the failure of successive chains of command over the last ten years to acknowledge the severity of the problem."
In early 2003, allegations arose of widespread sexual harassment and assaults on the military campus. In the ensuing months, 142 cadets reported they had been sexually assaulted over the previous decade while at the Academy.
Schmitz' report continued: "[W]e found many leaders in positions of authority who could have been better role models, could have been more vigilant in inspecting those placed under command, failed to guard against and suppress sexual misconduct between and among cadets ... and failed to hold cadets accountable for such misconduct."
In addition, the report charged the military school with hosting "a problematic cadet subculture" that included "negative male attitudes and actions towards women."
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson served at the Air Force Academy from 1998 to 2001. He says he has a "hard time buying the Pentagon's explanation."
"I can tell you that when I was out there, we were very sensitive to it," Patterson says, referring to allegations of sexual harassment among cadets. "It was happening on a situational basis -- not by any stretch of the imagination on a regular basis -- and when we did know about it, we prosecuted to the fullest extent possible."
Patterson recalls that during his stint at the Academy, he had to send a young male cadet, who had been found guilty of rape, to Fort Leavenworth. So he says he cannot understand why the report says the school failed to hold cadets accountable for sexual misconduct.
"When I was out there, I was very impressed that the chain of command had a real good handle on preventing those kinds of things from happening," he adds.
The retired Air Force officer has a theory about the Schmitz report. He contends it was designed to head off negative media coverage.
"When you have problems like this, the tendency with the Pentagon is to go to the other extreme and to over-react just because of the public relations aspect of what happened," he says. "I think that they're trying to go above and beyond just to preclude the potential for negative press down the road."
Press exposure of the issue is likely to follow. Schmitz reported finding shortcomings in actions by eight Air Force officers and two legal counsels who he says kept the magnitude of the problem from being "visible" to Air Force authorities and "prevented effective criminal investigations." According to a Washington Post report, David Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, says the Air Force plans to review those ten people for possible punitive action.
