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SOUR GRAPES FROM EX-ARMY SECRETARY FRANCIS
HARVEY -- Says he was solving problems with the
care for Iraq war veterans before being
ousted somewhat unfairly.
Former Army Secretary Francis Harvey
Story here...
http://www.chron.com/disp/
story.mpl/headline/nation/4692297.html
Story below:
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Ex-Army Secretary Francis Harvey says plans to
improve Walter Reed were in the works
On the lookout for his next mission
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Former Army Secretary Francis Harvey, the top civilian
official forced out in the Walter Reed hospital scandal, says he was
solving problems with the care for Iraq war veterans before being ousted
somewhat unfairly.
"There certainly is a degree of unfairness about the whole thing, no
question about it, particularly from the point of view that actions were
being taken, (and) we had the information to fix the problems," Harvey
said this week in his first face-to-face interview since leaving the top
Army job. "There are a lot of things in life that are fair or unfair.
I'm not going away bitter."
Harvey, 63, described numerous accomplishments during his 2 1/2 -year
term as Army chief, and said he was leaving with a strong sense of pride
in having served America.
He resigned March 2 under pressure from Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Gates was upset by Harvey's decision to appoint Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley
interim commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center during the scandal
triggered by a Washington Post report on the moldy, dilapidated
condition of a building at the Army facility.
Gates did not return calls to his office for comment.
Kiley, who was surgeon general of the Army, had previously commanded
Walter Reed. Harvey's selection of Kiley raised questions about whether
the right person had been picked to solve the problems.
But, Harvey said in the interview, "that was a temporary measure to buy
time to think about who the best qualified person is."
He noted Kiley had the support of the Walter Reed staff.
"You have to make sure the morale of the people at Walter Reed is
maintained," he said. "That's why I did what I did."
Victim of political firestorm
During a wide-ranging talk at his northern Virginia home, Harvey
detailed what he said was a multi-layered response to the Walter Reed
situation within days of learning about the shoddy conditions from a
Feb. 18 article.
"Nobody really knew about Building 18. This was news to everybody," said
Harvey. "I had met with probably over 600 wounded warriors and their
families and never really had any major complaints about the quality of
care."
He said that within 48 hours, he had toured Building 18 and was
determined to "fix it and fix it quickly."
Two days later he said, "We had a 30-plus page action plan" on
addressing the substandard conditions at Walter Reed, and had set a
course to get soldiers into a better facility. "I was satisfied that we
were moving out quickly to fix this problem."
Military experts said Harvey was caught in political firestorm that
transcended the kinds of managerial solutions he used during a long
career in private business.
"My gut feeling is that Secretary Harvey made a good management decision
and a bad political decision" in bringing in Kiley to oversee Walter
Reed, said James Carafano, a military analyst for the Heritage
Foundation think tank. "Clearly there was a lot of emotion surrounding
the Walter Reed story, and politics feeds on emotions. Under those
conditions, civilian secretaries become expendable."
Harvey, who had a 28-year career at Westinghouse, where he rose from
engineer to chief operating officer of the company's industry and
technologies group, said he plans to return to the business world.
He had an opinion on the support work in Iraq by Houston-based
Halliburton KBR, which has been accused of over-billing the government.
"My observation from my seven or eight trips to Iraq and Afghanistan is
that if you want to get a smile on a soldier's face, ask them how the
chow (food) is," he said. "Chow is important to soldiers and KBR did, in
their minds, an excellent job in getting first-class chow there."
Weighing in on the issues
On whether the Army could contend with a crisis in Iran or elsewhere,
Harvey said, "There is no question that this army is stretched and it is
stressed and the roots of the problem go back to the under-funding of
the 1990s." But he said he was confident the Army could find a way to
meet any challenge on the world stage.
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, a
Washington think tank, said of Harvey's leadership, "In many ways, I
think he did fine. ... One criticism I'd have of Harvey and other Army
leaders is that they didn't insist on expanding the Army soon enough.
They had drunk (former Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's Kool-Aid and
decided the Army was big enough."
michael.hedges@chron.com
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Larry Scott --
