Barry McCaffrey
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Barry Richard McCaffrey (born November 17, 1942 in Taunton, MA) is a retired United States Army four-star general. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at the United States Military Academy, where he had been the Bradley Professor of International Security Studies from 2001 to 2005.
McCaffrey attended Phillips Academy. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (Class of 1964), and holds an MA from American University. In addition to serving as a professor at the USMA, he is also a military commentator on television.
He fought in the Vietnam War, where he was wounded, and the Gulf War. During Operation Desert Storm, McCaffrey commanded the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In Operation Desert Storm he was known for his speed and boldness. Over the course of his military career, he was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice, the Purple Heart three times and the Silver Star twice. In his career, McCaffrey rose to become the youngest 4‑star general in the Army at the time of his promotion.
General McCaffrey's last command in the Army was that of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the unified command responsible for U.S. military activities in Central and South America. He commanded SOUTHCOM, whose headquarters were then in the Republic of Panama, from 1994 to 1996. Besides managing military personnel, as part of his duties in Panama, McCaffrey supported humanitarian operations for over 10,000 Cuban refugees in 1996. It was also during his last military position that he created the first Human Rights Council and Human Rights Code of Conduct for U.S. Military Joint Command.
He is well-known for having been Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2001. As Drug Czar, General McCaffrey (ret.) was instrumental in negotiating a deal to place anti-drug messages in prime time television shows without acknowledging that these messages were paid for by his Office. This created quite a scandal when it was revealed in Salon.com, and the practice was later declared illegal by the FCC under President George W. Bush.
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Allegations of misconduct during the Gulf War
New Yorker article
According to an article written by Seymour Hersh published in 2000 The New Yorker, General McCaffrey committed war crimes during the Gulf War by having troops under his command kill retreating Iraqis after a ceasefire had been declared. Hersh's article "quotes senior officers decrying the lack of discipline and proportionality in the McCaffrey-ordered attack." One colonel told Hersh that it "made no sense for a defeated army to invite their own death. ... It came across as shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone was incredulous." [1]
These charges had been made by Army personnel after the war and an Army investigation had cleared McCaffrey of any wrongdoing. Hersh dismissed the findings of the investigation, writing that "few soldiers report crimes, because they don't want to jeopardize their Army careers."
Hersh describes his interview with Private First Class Charles Sheehan-Miles:
- When I asked Sheehan-Miles why he fired, he replied, "At that point, we were shooting everything. Guys in the company told me later that some were civilians. It wasn't like they came at us with a gun. It was that they were there -- 'in the wrong place at the wrong time.'" Although Sheehan-Miles is unsure whether he and his fellow-tankers were ever actually fired upon during the war, he is sure that there was no significant enemy fire. "We took some incoming once, but it was friendly fire," he said. "The folks we fought never had a chance." He came away from Iraq convinced that he and his fellow-soldiers were, as another tanker put it, part of "the biggest firing squad in history."
McCaffrey's and Powell's rebuttals to allegations of misconduct
McCaffrey denied the charges and attacked what he called Hersh's "revisionist history" of the Gulf War. According to Georgie Anne Geyer of the Chicago Tribune from May 2000, Hersh’s accusations were disputed by a number of military personnel, who later claimed to have been misquoted by the journalist. She argues that this may have been Hersh’s misguided attempt to break another My Lai story, and that he "could not possibly like a man such as McCaffrey, who is so temperamentally and philosophically different from him…” Finally, she suggests that Hersh may also have been motivated to attack the general for McCaffrey’s role as the drug czar.[2]
Lt. Gen. Steven Arnold, interviewed by Hersh for the controversial article, was one of the officers who later claimed to have been misquoted. He wrote the editor of The New Yorker saying "I know that my brief comments in the article were not depicted in an entirely accurate manner and were taken out of context…. When the Iraqi forces fired on elements of the 24th Infantry Division, they were clearly committing a hostile act. I regret having granted an interview with Mr. Hersh. The tone and thrust of the article places me in a position of not trusting or respecting General Barry McCaffrey, and nothing could be further from the truth." [3]
Similar criticism came from Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Iraq War, who described the Hersh article as "attempted character assassination on General McCaffrey," in an interview with Sam Donaldson for the TV show This Week, in May of 2000.
ABC confirmation of misconduct allegations
ABC News followed up on Hersh's report in June 2000, interviewing six soldiers from the platoon of scouts under the command of Gen. McCaffrey. All six confirmed Hersh's report, telling ABC News that they witnessed the attack. Two of the scouts, Edward Walker and David Collatt, claim to have witnessed the attack from 200 yards away.
ABC interviewed Major General John LeMoyne, who oversaw the Army investigation into the charges against McCaffrey. LeMoyne denies the incident occurred: "Nobody was killed. None, zero. Soldiers--the Iraqi soldiers were never shot at, ever, at that point. None of us, hundreds and hundreds of us ever saw a body. None of us."
ABC reviewed LeMoyne's investigation and found it "flawed and incomplete. The Army failed to interview the aide Le Moyne told investigators he immediately sent to the area. It failed to interview many of the Scouts, and it failed to interview all the Bradley crews. While the Army did conclude there was firing, it failed to establish which Bradleys were firing. The Bradley crew members who did submit statements denied any knowledge of the incident and denied shooting at anything. Further, the Army failed to establish why there was firing at all in an area known to hold the prisoners. To this day, Battalion Commander Charles Ware does not have a clear explanation."
References
Daniel Forbes, "Gulf War Crimes?" Salon.com (15 May 2000).
Georgie Anne Geyer, "Seymour Hersh's Gulf War Misconceptions," Chicago Tribune (19 May 2000) p. 23.
Seymour Hersh, "Overwhelming Force: What Happened in the Final Days of the Gulf War?" The New Yorker (22 May 2000).
Jackie Judd (Reporter) and Peter Jennings (Anchor), "Investigation into Killing of Unarmed Iraqi Soldiers," ABC World News Tonight (15 June 2000). Transcript.
Barry R. McCaffrey, "The New Yorker's Revisionist History," Wall Street Journal (22 May 2000).
George Stephanopoulos (Reporter) and Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts (Anchors), "General Colin Powell Discusses His Group America's Promise," This Week from ABC News (21 May 2000) Transcript.