Posted on 07/24/2003 10:58:33 AM PDT by wabash
Senior aides to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thwarted Gulf War veteran Rep. Steve Buyer’s (R-Ind.) chance to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Hill has learned.
The intervention from the upper echelons of the Pentagon ended a saga in which confusion reigned over whether Buyer had actually been mobilized — or was even, as a congressman, allowed to go on active service — and ended with Army Secretary Thomas White’s rescinding a mobilization order that never existed.It all began on a Thursday in mid-March when an official in the office of the chief of the Army Reserve informed Buyer, a lieutenant colonel in the Reserve, that he was potentially qualified to serve as an attorney at a prisoner of war camp in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Buyer told The Hill that he had placed a phone call to the official to make sure his military photo was part of his promotion package. During the course of that phone call, Buyer said, the official, who has not been identified, told him: “Sir, you need to know that there are two jobs open in theater for which you are qualified. … I thought I would inform you in case you were called.”
The Indiana congressman says that he then received another call, on March 20, in which he was informed that he had a 90 percent chance of being sent “downrange” within 48 to 72 hours.
The news gave him a “body rush” because he had voted to give Bush authority to use force and he felt he could not refuse a forthcoming order to mobilize and deploy to Iraq, he says.
His next move was to ask Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) for a leave of absence, which was granted. Later, on the House floor, Buyer read a statement into the Congressional Record, which he says was approved in advance by Army lawyers.
“I have been called to active duty in the United States Army,” it said. “Pending further orders, I request immediate indefinite leave of the House of Representatives to accommodate my military duties.”
Cable networks broadcast Buyer’s statement, and in his absence his fellow lawmakers gave him a standing ovation.
By March 25, Buyer said he was waiting to be sent to Fort Benning, Ga., to pick up his rifle and gear, and spending his time studying the laws of war. But it turns out that what the congressman had received was not an official mobilization order but merely a warning about being called for active duty.
The Army Reserve official with whom Buyer spoke may have interpreted Buyer’s willingness to serve as a request to do so. And the fact that he was not just a lieutenant colonel but also a congressman may have given the process extra forward momentum — until Rumsfeld’s aides intervened.
Dr. David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and his deputy Charles Abell, a longtime Senate Armed Services Committee aide, ordered Secretary White to step in.
On March 31, White sent a two-paragraph letter to Buyer — in his capacity as a member of Congress, not as an individual, as Buyer’s chief of staff told The Hill — rescinding Buyer’s nonexistent mobilization order. Buyer’s office declined to release a copy of the letter.
But a Pentagon official told The Hill that Chu and Abell assumed that both sides had acted honorably.
On the evening of March 31, Buyer sent a Dear Colleague letter to lawmakers. It read: “This evening, the U.S. Army informed me that I would not be deployed ... due to my high-profile status as a U.S. representative.”
Joe Hanley, the Army Reserve’s chief of public affairs, explained what the normal procedure is for mobilization.
“Individuals would receive a written mobilization order, which puts them within a different legal status within the military,” he said: “They transition from being a traditional, part-time member to full time and are accorded the full rights and privileges of an active-duty soldier.”
He added, “There were never any orders cut on Congressman Buyer.”
If reservists are not serving more than 270 days, they can hold elected office. And if a lawmaker is called to active duty during “a national emergency,” then the 270-day requirement can be waived. But the decision to mobilize a lawmaker must be approved at the highest levels of DOD and within the Army.
Because President Bush declared a national emergency after Sept. 11, Buyer could have been mobilized for at least one year and not longer than two years.
His official website explains that he is an individual mobilization augmentee (IMA) assigned to the assistant military deputy to the deputy undersecretary of the Army for international affairs.
He is not attached to a war-fight unit. “I’m a single,” Buyer said.
A lawyer familiar with the process told The Hill that an IMA would have to be transferred from his current job at the Pentagon to what is known as a “battle roster” to go to Iraq.
If called to duty in his current role, Buyer would be sent to the Pentagon and report to the No. 2 military assistant to the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for international affairs unless he were transferred to another unit.
Buyer, too, has served his two weeks of required training overseas. “When I was in Kosovo, I carried a general’s bag,” he said, although he corrected himself and said he had not been in Kosovo but in Bosnia, Germany and Hungary.
He said he was disappointed that he did not get the chance to join Operation Iraqi Freedom, and blamed the media, CNN specifically, for publicizing his impending departure. He said that caused the civilian leadership in the Pentagon to reconsider mobilizing him.
A source with close ties to Pentagon officials said Abell, Rumsfeld’s aide, vetoed Buyer’s prospective deployment because he viewed the congressman’s willingness to serve as “purely for political reasons,” such as burnishing his image so he can run for the Senate in the event Indiana’s senior Republican senator, Richard Lugar, decides to retire.
But Buyer said he has no designs on a Senate seat. He did acknowledge, however, that if Lugar retired he would consider running for his seat.
Buyer won his last reelection campaign with 73 percent of the vote.
I originally had no reason to attack Buyer. However, Buyer left several important questions unanswered. As my congressman (and many others'), he has a duty to inform us on what really happened and whether or not he lied.
Congressman Buyer still needs to answer a few questions. Recently, I gave him that chance when I asked him about it in my local paper. He didn't respond.
Congressman Buyer needs to show his constituents, with documents, if he was called to active duty. He claims he was, but conflicting sources show he was not.
We also need to know about whether or not he received full pay during his leave of absence from Congress. If so, does he intend to give the money back because he left for false reasons?
I hate to think that Buyer lied to Congress, the military and to his constituents. I further hate to think that Buyer, for political gain, used a war in which men and women died. However, Buyer's silence speaks loud and clear. I for one will no longer support him, even if he is a Republican.
I'm an Indiana Republican (and I also have a little military reserve experience).
I think it's understandable that there could have been an honest mixup. Maybe he received a warning order, and over-interpreted what he heard in his zeal to serve his country. That's not dishonorable.
Or maybe the Army really hold him he's being called up, then changed their mind. It happens.
Any way you look at it, I suspect his conduct here is not blameworthy.
The note you posted at the end of the story seemed to take a rather strong tone, as if you suspect he's done something wrong. Maybe you didn't intend for your note to sound that way. If you think he did something wrong, feel free to write out what it is.
And I'm confused as to why someone signs up here and then within 48 hours posts a months-old hatchet piece on a patriotic man. Maybe you're as legit as you say, but everything about this adds up to DisrUptor.
As someone who "adopted" Buyer as my congressman (to help me deal with the fact that Jerry "The MOAB" Nadler is my actual one), I followed this story fairly closely and have found no reason to doubt Congressman Buyer and his motives.
In fact, as a member of Congress, he had every right to not even let it get that far, but his conscience compelled him to agree to go wherever his country sent him. He has a special set of skills (in running the legal aspects of a POW camp and interrogations) that isn't particularly common and experience in that very region, so it was natural to assume that he'd be called to serve his country once again.
Let's see, you're 22 years old, don't have a job and obviously never served in the armed forces. Young man, not only are you not a real Republican, you're not a real Hoosier.
...thoroughly Republican.
Let's see, you're 22 years old, don't have a job and obviously never served in the armed forces. Young man, not only are you not a real Republican, you're not a real Hoosier.
If there were legs to this story, the Indianapolis Star would have been all over it. They have only given it a passing mention.
However, it appears here in The Hill which is a Washington publication. I think it more likely that the sniping is coming from Clintonistas in both Congress and embedded in the lower levels of the Defense Department. Buyer was one of the Impeachment Managers, and the Clintons never rest when it comes to revenge.
Buyer didn't answer your questions in the paper for one reason; he isn't going to draw more attention to his embarassing mistake and keep the story alive.
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