The independent commission investigating charges of severe sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy has turned in its report to DoD. The New York Times says it is shocking in its condemnation of the Air Force leadership.
Top leaders of the United States Air Force disregarded persistent warnings over the last decade that frequent and unpunished sexual assaults were undermining its academy in Colorado Springs, a civilian commission investigating the matter reported today.The commission also said that in an attempt "to shield Air Force Headquarters from public criticism," the Air Force's general counsel had largely ignored this history of official neglect when he reported on rape at the academy earlier this year.
Citing repeated warnings from the Air Force surgeon general and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee, the commission concluded that, "Since at least 1993, the highest levels of Air Force leadership have known of serious sexual misconduct problems at the academy," but failed to take effective action. Instead, it made fitful and limited attempts to investigate the issue, but quickly dropped them, the commission's report said.
The panel flatly rejected a key assertion of the Air Force General Counsel's report last June, which found "no systemic acceptance of sexual assault at the academy," or "institutional avoidance of responsibility."
It said, "The panel cannot agree with that conclusion given the substantial amount of information regarding the sexual assaults and the academy's institutional culture available to leaders at the academy, Air Force Headquarters and the Office of the Air Force General Counsel."
Full 141-page report (in pdf) is available via the DoD.
Several damning sentences in just the executive summary stand out immediately:
The sexual assault problems at the Academy are real and continue to this day.The Panel examined and reviewed the culture and environment at the Academy. It found an atmosphere that helped foster a breakdown in values which led to the pervasiveness of sexual assaults and is perhaps the most difficult element of the problem to solve.
This should be intolerable. I stand by an earlier comment: the kind of brutality that has apparently existed at the U.S. Air Force Academy is a violation of the fundamental values of U.S. law, military law, and the American spirit. I'm certainly no expert on the military, but it seems to me that if these revelations do not result in both sweeping change and tough punishments, something is really rotten at the heart of the military culture.
Time for Sec. Rumsfeld to show his quality.
Posted by Alan at September 22, 2003 05:30 PM