Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week won his fight to install his man, Francis J. Harvey, as secretary of the Army.
In the midst of two and a half wars, at a time when the Army is struggling to transform itself and must use extraordinary methods to find enough soldiers to fill the rotations to Iraq, Rumsfeld selected a man who's never served in the military or in government to be the Army's CEO.
Rumsfeld told the man he's passing over for the job -- acting Army secretary Les Brownlee, a retired Army infantry colonel and a highly decorated combat veteran -- that he "wanted a businessman" to run the Army. Harvey, a longtime Westinghouse executive, was Rumsfeld's second choice in 18 months of bitter wrangling with some powerful senators.
Rumsfeld's long fight with the senators began in May 2003 when he fired Army Secretary Tom White, a retired Army brigadier general, over White's support of then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki (who angered Rumsfeld by saying that several hundred thousand American troops would be needed to occupy Iraq).
When the defense secretary tapped Air Force Secretary James Roche, another defense industry exec and a Navy and government veteran, to take over the Army job, he ran afoul of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain was demanding that the Air Force and Roche hand over internal e-mails on its plan to lease new airborne tankers from Boeing, and when they weren't forthcoming he blocked Roche and all Defense Department civilian nominees.
While all of this was dragging on, the Army was left in the hands of acting secretary Brownlee, who'd spent 18 years on the Hill working for Sen. John Warner and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Brownlee, who was awarded two Silver Stars for heroism in Vietnam, spent the last three Christmases with American troops in war zones. Although Brownlee may have been the ideal candidate for the job he was already doing, there was no way Rumsfeld would nominate him. He was angry at how McCain, and more recently Warner, had thwarted his appointment of Roche to run the Army. This time he'd have his way and his man in that job.
Although the service secretaries are political appointees, they traditionally have been chosen from the ranks of those who've served the country in uniform, preferably in the uniforms of the services they've been picked to run.
Rumsfeld ground down his Hill opponents and got his way in the matter of Harvey.
On Tuesday, the day Harvey was confirmed as Army secretary, the Pentagon announced the resignation of Air Force Secretary Roche, the guy Rumsfeld originally wanted to run the Army. There was the usual official statement about how Roche had planned to stay only one term and what a wonderful job he'd done.
Roche, another hard-nosed defense industry businessman of the sort the defense secretary seems to like so well, will leave the Pentagon -- along with Air Force acquisitions chief Marvin Sambur -- under investigation by the Justice Department for their roles in a $24 billion non-competitive contract for 100 aerial refueling tankers from Boeing.
The Air Force's chief negotiator of that deal and many others, Darleen Druyun, also negotiated herself a $250,000-a-year job with Boeing. She's been sentenced to federal prison. The former chief financial officer of Boeing pleaded guilty for his role in hiring Druyun before she retired from the Air Force.
Rumsfeld himself seems secure in his job as secretary of defense for another year, perhaps longer, in the new Bush Cabinet, even though he and the neo-conservatives around him bear particular responsibility for failures of both planning and execution in securing and rebuilding Iraq.
