Hagel: Top military brass to be cut 20 percent

[longknife]

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday he has ordered 20 percent 'across the top' budget cuts for his Pentagon staff and that of his top brass.

Read more @ Hagel: Top military brass to be cut 20 percent | Military Times | militarytimes.com

There are few things I agree with in the Obama defense buget. But, this is certainly one of them! Do we really need all those star-bearers and their extended personal staffs?

 

[waltky]

Might be indicators of a systemic problem within the U.S. military...

Hagel orders urgent push for ethics crackdown
6 Feb.`14 WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wants military leaders to inject more urgency into ensuring "moral character and moral courage" in a force suffering a rash of ethical lapses.

Hagel has been worried by a string of scandals that has produced a wave of unwelcome publicity for the military. But in light of new disclosures this week, including the announcement of alleged cheating among senior sailors in the nuclear Navy, Hagel on Wednesday demanded a fuller accounting of the depth of the problem. Last month the Air Force revealed it was investigating widespread cheating on proficiency tests among nuclear missile launch officers in Montana, and numerous senior officers in all branches of the armed forces have been caught in embarrassing episodes of personal misbehavior, inside and outside the nuclear force. The Air Force also is pursuing a drug use investigation, and a massive bribery case in California has ensnared six Navy officers so far.

At the same time, hundreds of soldiers and others are under criminal investigation in what the Army describes as a widespread scheme to take fraudulent payments and kickbacks from a National Guard recruiting program. The steady drumbeat of one military ethics scandal after another has caused many to conclude that the misbehavior reflects more than routine lapses. "He definitely sees this as a growing problem," Hagel's chief spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, told a Pentagon news conference Wednesday after Hagel met privately with the top uniformed and civilian officials of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. "And he's concerned about the depth of it," Kirby said. "I don't think he could stand here and tell you that he has — that anybody has — the full grasp here, and that's what worries (Hagel) is that maybe he doesn't have the full grasp of the depth of the issue, and he wants to better understand it."

Hagel's predecessor, Leon Panetta, had launched an effort to crack down on ethics failures more than a year ago, and the matter has been a top priority for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, for even longer. Kirby said Hagel has come to realize that he needs to investigate as well. "We don't fully know right now what we're grappling with here and how deep and serious it is," Kirby said. "And I think, you know, for a leader at his level with the responsibilities that he carries every day, not knowing something like that is something to be concerned about. And he wants to know more."

Hagel believes that the vast majority of military members are "brave, upright and honest," and he is encouraged by efforts already underway to curb misconduct, including sexual assaults, Kirby said. But Hagel told the service leaders Wednesday that he "also believes there must be more urgency behind these efforts" and that all Pentagon leaders must "put renewed emphasis on developing moral character and moral courage in our force." Kirby was asked whether Hagel believes ethics lapses are a symptom of overuse of the military for the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "He believes that that is a factor that should be looked at," the spokesman said.

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Hagel worried unethical troops ‘stain the honor’ of US military
February 5, 2014 ~ Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is concerned that a series of ethical lapses by servicemembers might be indicators of a systemic problem within the U.S. military, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters at the Defense Department Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Navy leaders announced that staff members at the Navy’s nuclear propulsion school in Charleston, S.C. allegedly cheated on a written qualification exam for instructors who teach sailors how to operate nuclear reactors. Last month, the Air Force was rocked by revelations that nuclear launch officers were involved in a cheating scandal and an illegal narcotics scandal. Kirby said Hagel is “deeply troubled” by these incidents. A 60-day review of the U.S. nuclear enterprise is underway, and service leaders are expected to develop an action plan to deal with personnel, management and cultural problems within the force.

In the press conference, Kirby pointed out that the military is still tackling the issue of sexual assault within the ranks, which has received a lot of attention from lawmakers alarmed by statistics released by the Pentagon indicating that thousands of servicemembers are sexually assaulted by their comrades each year. Examples of bad behavior among General Officers prompted Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to conduct an ethics review of the senior officer corps in 2012. “If you just take a look at recent incidents, and I'm not just talking about in the last few weeks, last few months, even the last couple of years, I think he's generally concerned that there could be at least at some level a breakdown in ethical behavior and in the demonstration of moral courage,” Kirby said.

Kirby defined moral courage as “doing the right thing when nobody is looking [and] treating people the right way, even when they can't do anything for you.” Hagel believes that malfeasance within the military is getting worse. “He definitely sees this as a growing problem. And he's concerned about the depth of it. I don't think he could stand here and tell you that…anybody has the full grasp here. And that's what worries the secretary is that maybe we don't -- maybe he doesn't have the full grasp of the depth of the issue, and he wants to better understand it,” Kirby said. Dempsey told the Wall Street Journal last week that the military will focus more on ethics training going forward, and he suggested that an officer’s character should be given more emphasis in the promotion system.

The U.S. military is the most respected public institution in the United States, according to numerous surveys taken since 9/11. But Hagel fears that high-profile scandals could damage the image of the Armed Forces among the American people. “He's mindful that the vast majority serve very honorably every day, but it doesn't take more than a few to stain the honor and the integrity of the entire force. And I think that's what we're starting to see now,” Kirby said. “He's concerned about the health of the force and the health of the strong culture of accountability and responsibility that Americans have come to expect from their military.” Kirby said putting more focus on ethics will be a high priority for Hagel and DOD leaders going forward, although he did not announce any new initiatives in this regard.

Hagel worried unethical servicemembers ?stain the honor? of US military - U.S. - Stripes

 

[Stephanie]

This administration has not only destroyed and demoralized (we the people) in this country with hopelessness, now they are working on our DEFENSE which is the ONE THING our Government is suppose to do, PROTECT AND DEFEND..

Hope you all who voted for them are happy

 

[Politico]

Good. There's too much deadweight floating around.

 

[waltky]

Hagel gonna get to the bottom of it...

Hagel will have general officer be point man on ethics issues
February 7, 2014 WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced Friday that he will assign to his senior staff a general officer who will report directly to him on issues related to military ethics, character and leadership.

The officer will also work directly with the service secretaries and the service chiefs and coordinate the actions of the services on these issues. Hagel will receive weekly reports from the Defense Department’s senior officer and enlisted leadership on the progress DOD is making to tackle systemic ethics problems, he said. “This will be an absolute top priority for the service secretaries, the service chiefs, [chairman of the Joint Chiefs) General Dempsey and me,” Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon. “I think we need to find out, is there a deep, wide problem? If there is, then what's the scope of that problem? How did this occur? Was it a constant focus of 12 years on two long land wars, taking our emphasis off some of these other areas? I don't know. We intend to find out.”

Hagel said he has not yet selected the officer who will fill the position. The latest revelation came to light Thursday when CNN reported that Brig. Gen. Martin Schweitzer is no longer allowed to brief Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel because Schweitzer made inappropriate sexual comments about a congresswoman in an email he sent to Army colleagues. Schweitzer was a colonel with the 82nd Airborne Division when he sent the email. Schweitzer was promoted to general officer even though the Army knew about the email at the time of his promotion.

Hagel said that in the coming weeks he and Dempsey will announce specific actions that the services will be taking. “We're going to continue to address [the problem] and we're going to fix it,” he said. But ethicists who have advised the military on ethical issues say it’s a complex problem to tackle, and it isn’t a new one. “There is a long tradition in the Navy — when I was at the Academy — of circulating good test preparation; so good, in fact, that sometimes it was the real answers,” said Dr. Nancy Sherman, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University, who was the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the Naval Academy in the mid-1990s when there was a big cheating scandal.

Dr. Ann Buchholtz, a professor of leadership and ethics at Rutgers Business School who gave a two-hour presentation on ethics at an Army leadership course in January, suggested that directives and admonitions by senior officials won’t be enough. “The strongest effects are the immediate managers. We know that the biggest effect on how somebody behaves at work is the manager right above them, the ones they see every day. And that’s why it can be such a challenge to get a culture of ethics,” she said. “Senior leaders can’t do it alone.”

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IG: Former Pacific schools chief violated ethics rules
February 7, 2014 WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense Inspector General released a report Friday saying that the former DODEA director for Pacific schools violated ethics regulations by having a relative of a subordinate switch tires with her in order to pass a Japanese vehicle safety test.

According to the report, Diana Ohman, who ran the DOD dependents schools in Asia from 2009 until she resigned in 2011, failed a vehicle inspection on her 1998 BMW Z3 because the tires were 1/4-inch wider than allowed. Ohman “used her official position to induce the [redacted word] of a subordinate to exchange the wheels and tires of his car with the wheels of Ms. Ohman’s car in order for her car to pass a mandatory vehicle inspection.”

The report says that Ohman violated standards of the Joint Ethics Regulation, United States Forces Japan regulations and the Status of Forces Agreement, among others, but the IG ruled that because she compensated the man — it is unclear from the heavily redacted report whether he was a spouse or other male relative — she did not receive an “improper gift.”

Ohman was given a chance to comment on the report in June 2012 and agreed with the conclusions in the report, and she apologized for acting “in a manner inconsistent with DoD ethical values.” While with DODEA, she served for a decade as the area director for Europe before switching positions in 2009 with then-Pacific schools director Nancy Bresell.

Ohman, who oversaw 48 military schools and about 24,000 students in the Pacific, told staff in October 2011 she was leaving to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs as Midwest regional director of national cemeteries and monuments, according to DODEA-Pacific public affairs. There was no mention of any investigation. Because Ohman is no longer employed by DoD but is still in the federal government’s Senior Executive Service, the IG recommended only that the Office of Personnel Management be notifed of “substantiated misconduct.”

IG: Former Pacific schools chief violated ethics rules - Pacific - Stripes