Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

When the news broke, Perle quickly resigned his chairmanship of the advisory board, while maintaining his innocence. In resigning, Perle told Rumsfeld he didn’t want the scandal to distract from “the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged” in Iraq. 78Rumsfeld asked Perle to remain on the board, which he did. Representative John Conyers called for an investigation of Perle, and the case was sent to Joseph Schmitz. After a six-month investigation, Schmitz exonerated Perle of any wrongdoing, saying, “We have completed our inquiry regarding the conduct of Mr. Perle and did not substantiate allegations of misconduct.” 79Despite exposés in almost every leading news outlet in the country about Perle’s multiple conflicts of interest, the Inspector General’s report “found insufficient basis to conclude that Mr. Perle created the appearance of impropriety from the perspective of a reasonable person.” 80Perle said he was “very pleased” 81with Schmitz’s conclusion, while Rumsfeld declared, “The Inspector General’s report confirms the integrity of the Defense Policy Board and Mr. Perle’s participation.” 82

Not long after the revelations about Richard Perle’s business dealings, another controversy erupted about a powerful senior official in Rumsfeld’s inner circle, Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform. Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at twenty-three religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two. 83Among Boykin’s statements, he said he knew the United States would prevail over a Muslim adversary in Somalia because “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” 84Boykin also charged that Islamic radicals want to destroy America “because we’re a Christian nation” 85that “will never abandon Israel.” 86Our “spiritual enemy,” Boykin declared, “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” 87As for President Bush, Boykin said, “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.” 88In another speech, Boykin said other countries “have lost their morals, lost their values. But America is still a Christian nation.” 89He told a church group in Oregon that special operations forces were victorious in Iraq because of their faith in God. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that the battle that we’re in is a spiritual battle,” he said. “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” 90

Boykin was a career military officer, one of the first Delta Force commandos who rose through the ranks to become head of the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command. He had served in the Central Intelligence Agency, and during the war on terror, he had been in charge of Army Special Forces before joining Rumsfeld’s close-knit leadership team, where he was placed in charge of hunting “high-value targets.” 91Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq. Asked in a Congressional inquiry about the similarities between the U.S. Phoenix program in Vietnam and special operations in the war on terror, Boykin said: “I think we’re running that kind of program. We’re going after these people. Killing or capturing these people is a legitimate mission for the department. I think we’re doing what the Phoenix program was designed to do, without all of the secrecy.” 92Military analyst William Arkin, who first revealed Boykin’s comments, wrote, “When Boykin publicly spews this intolerant message while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, he strongly suggests that this is an official and sanctioned view—and that the U.S. Army is indeed a Christian army. But that’s only part of the problem. Boykin is also in a senior Pentagon policymaking position, and it’s a serious mistake to allow a man who believes in a Christian ‘jihad’ to hold such a job…. Boykin has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his Army superiors but from God—which is a worrisome line of command. For another, it is both imprudent and dangerous to have a senior officer guiding the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan who believes that Islam is an idolatrous, sacrilegious religion against which we are waging a holy war.” 93When Boykin came under fire for his anti-Muslim comments, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon brass vigorously defended him. “Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a secret operation to ‘Gitmoize’… the Abu Ghraib prison,” wrote former Clinton senior adviser Sidney Blumenthal. “He had flown to Guantanamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld’s orders.” 94

Amid outcry from human rights groups and Arab and Muslim organizations, Boykin personally requested that Schmitz’s department at the Pentagon conduct an investigation into any potential wrongdoing on his part. 95Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Boykin “is anxious to have the investigator do the investigator’s job.” 96After a ten-month review, Schmitz’s office essentially cleared Boykin, concluding the general had violated three internal Pentagon regulations. “Although it was the substance of Boykin’s remarks and not his regard for Pentagon rules that aroused controversy, the report pointedly steered clear of comment on the appropriateness of Boykin’s injection of religion into his depiction of the military’s counterterrorism efforts, including his claims that a ‘demonic presence’ lay behind the actions of radical Muslims,” reported the Washington Post . 97The paper quoted a senior Defense official who “said the report is seen as a ‘complete exoneration’ that ultimately found Boykin responsible for a few ‘relatively minor offenses’ related to technical and bureaucratic issues.” 98

In June 2004, Schmitz traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan and upon his return gave a major address titled “American Principles as Potent Weapons and Potential Casualties in the Global War on Terror.” 99At the time, the scandal over prisoner torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was still fresh in the United States, and Schmitz, who was in charge of investigating the abuse, did his best to whitewash the scandal. He blamed Abu Ghraib on a few “bad eggs,” 100saying, “I’m not aware of any illegal orders that came from any leaders.” 101He told an audience at the City Club of Cleveland, “The few systemic breakdowns, and the reprehensible actions of a few of our own people—who are even now being brought to justice—should not overshadow the sacrifices and accomplishments of the thousands of courageous Americans who continue to serve honorably in the best tradition of the United States Armed Forces.” 102Schmitz said that he had been to Abu Ghraib and “another detainee collection point” in Afghanistan “to learn more about the rules, standards, and procedures we use to collect intelligence and otherwise to deal with the known and potential terrorists we capture in the course of our ongoing military operations. The more time I spend with our forward-deployed troops, listening to their stories and watching them perform their duties, the more I understand why the terrorists hate us so much. Beyond any doubt, we owe our American men and women now serving overseas a debt of gratitude. I cannot begin to tell you what an awesome and honorable job American troops are doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan.” 103The terrorists, Schmitz said, “refuse to recognize the very standards of behavior that distinguish civilization from barbarism.” Even after the revelations of systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, he said, “We are still, by the grace of God, the beacon of hope to the world.” 104While speaking at length about the “rule of law” that governs the United States, Schmitz told the audience, “We ought not let the bad news coming out of Abu Ghraib eclipse the fact that we’ve got some great American sons and daughters of regular Americans, farmers and whatever, and they’re over there doing great work for you and for me.” 105In Afghanistan and Iraq, Schmitz said, “I saw American soldiers doing what we ‘Yanks’ have always done, being affable liberators, befriending the local people when they can, and chafing at the lack of contact when prevented from doing so by threats of violence from a shadowy and cowardly enemy.” 106