Byrnes - Fired for Standing Up?

Breaking up my usual easygoing Friday format, I feel compelled to add this information about General Byrnes. I got this email in response to some digging:

I know there's more to this than we know.  I'm a retired army colonel - seen plenty of hanky panky, and this is not the way its treated  - unless there is fraternization or some other factor that has yet to be reported. I checked with a buddy of mine who is a general
officer serving in Iraq - but formerly assigned to TRADOC.  He was not forthcoming - pretty much said that it was likely bad judgment on Byrnes. But...sometimes one needs to tow the party line.

So was this a case of "making an example" of Byrnes to warn the other generals to shape up? Perhaps, but probably not because of his personal issues. From Wayne Madison (scroll down to the Aug 10 reports):

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who Donald Rumsfeld hauled out of retirement to head up the Army after Gen. Eric Shinseki was fired and after no other active duty general wanted the job, relieved Byrnes of his command at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Byrnes had previous run-ins with the neo-cons in the Pentagon. In 2002, Byrnes was faced with being retired at Lt. Gen. after he clashed with then-Rumsfeld aide Stephen Cambone over proposed troop strength cuts. Then Army Secretary Thomas White, intervened on behalf of Byrnes and he received his fourth star. White was later fired by the Pentagon neo-cons.

What has not been reported is that recently, one of Byrnes' subordinate commands, Fort Rucker in Alabama, had been told to stand by for an influx of 50,000 military trainees -- a level the base has not seen since the Vietnam War. Byrnes' relief of command came on the heels of the Pentagon announcing that it might permit Spanish-language entrance examinations. Byrnes, who was in charge of Army training, would not only face recruits with lower education levels and past criminal records, but a lack of proficiency in English. Pentagon insiders report that it was Byrnes' policy disagreements with the Pentagon neo-cons over the new recruitment policies and the potential for calling up Army retirees and reinstating military conscription without adequate TRADOC funding that resulted in his firing. The personal misconduct charges were concocted by the Pentagon to cover up the fact that there are serious disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld among the flag officer ranks in the military.

Interestingly enough, the Washington Times - certainly a friend to this administration - also cites the past brush-up, which would have occurred when Byrnes was Director of the Army Staff.

  Retired officers, who asked not to be named, said Gen. Byrnes had been under investigation for some time and had been in the throes of a divorce.
    They expressed dismay at Gen. Byrnes, for whom a number of officers went to bat in 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld threatened to end his career at lieutenant general.
    Mr. Rumsfeld was upset at Gen. Byrnes for fighting proposed troop cuts being outlined by the defense secretary's aide, Stephen Cambone.
    Then-Army Secretary Thomas White and top generals interceded and convinced Mr. Rumsfeld to keep him. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Byrnes won nomination to a fourth star and the TRADOC command.
    "I'm damn mad," said a retired general who supported Gen. Byrnes. "People went to the mat to get him promoted. ... Now Rumsfeld can say, 'I told you so. I saw something you didn't.'?"

Rowan Scarborough, who's been close to Rumsfeld and wrote the above piece, must have gotten slapped for stepping away from the party lin. Today, he's got a new tune - Byrnes was sacked for not being a good TRADOC commander.

   The abrupt end to Gen. Kevin Byrnes' illustrious Army career overshadowed the challenge he faced at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Army announced this week that he had been dismissed for inappropriate conduct. Military sources said he had an affair outside his marriage.
    Tradoc, as it is called, is responsible for training recruits and polishing senior officers for command assignments.
    What Gen. Byrnes faced was an exodus of seasoned instructors. The war on terror, especially fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, created a pressing demand for officers to lead battalions and brigades. Gen. Byrnes saw his best instructors pulled out of the classroom and sent to the front. He was forced to cancel some courses, depriving future generals of critical training.
    "The Army is just too small for what they want it to do," said a retired general.

The real shame of this is, Byrnes is probably the typical good soldier who will take his lumps quietly and retire, wait out the storm of bad press, and eventually get on with his life as a special consultant or director on some multi-national corporation's board. We might never know what the real story is - certainly not by relying on the So-Called Liberal Media. My call? Rumsfeld hates Army generals that buck him and believes in payback. Cambone? A very quiet Rasputin in the Pentagon - you buck him, you will pay - eventually. Feith was loud and obnoxious, Cambone got things done and buried the evidence.

UPDATE: JAG Central identifies this DailyKos blog as another theory behind the sack - that Byrnes was going to join a group of retired high-ranking Army officers in calling for tighter controls and measures on prisoner interrogation. Yes, I know this sounds like a bunch of wild-eyed conspiracy theories, but I think what you're seeing is the disbelief that this guy is going down solely on a weak charge of adultry. And to those of you about to quote UCMJ to me, grow up, get off the sex kick. This act was retribution for something serious.

Comments

[Jolene]

Thank you for this post. My husband worked under him in Bosnia and is having a hard time believing this story.

[Mike]

Nothing new here. Gen. Sherman was relieved of his command in the Civil War for stating that the war would go on for years and not be a quick fix. 140 years later and we're still doing the same thing. Stupid people never learn from past mistakes.

[Charles2]

Being a burr in somebody's saddle is a much more believable story than the one that the MSM has out there - and that the administration is surely backing with anonymous sources. Especially as he was separated and the woman - the supposed woman - was not a soldier and not related to anyone in the military.

This reeks of payback. Good digging on this one.