Defense Chief Rebukes Commander in Saudi Bombing

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary William S. Cohen on Thursday blocked the scheduled promotion of the Air Force one-star general who commanded U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia at the time of last year’s terrorist attack on a military housing complex, ruling that the officer failed to take adequate precautions in the face of a growing security threat.

Cohen’s controversial decision effectively ended the military career of Brig. Gen. Terryl J. Schwalier, who had been regarded as one of the service’s brightest prospects before a truck bomb shattered the Khobar Towers complex, killing 19 service personnel and injuring dozens more. Shortly after Cohen spoke, Schwalier announced that he was resigning from the service.

Although Cohen praised Schwalier’s overall career, he said the general’s failure to protect troops under his command fell short of the Pentagon’s “high standards of performance for the commanders in the field.” Schwalier’s promotion to major general already had been approved but was being held up pending Cohen’s decision.

The action opened a gaping fissure within the military, reaching all the way to the joint chiefs of staff. Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he supported Cohen’s decision, arguing that it is “a cornerstone of our profession” to hold commanders accountable for what they do or fail to do.

But Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald R. Fogleman was so angered by the action that he asked on Monday to retire a year early. On Thursday, Cohen announced the selection of Gen. Michael Ryan, 54, currently commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, to become the new Air Force chief of staff. A fighter pilot like Fogleman, Ryan is also skilled on the Pentagon’s bureaucratic battlefield, where he has held a number of key staff posts.

In reaching his decision to punish Schwalier, Cohen overruled two internal Air Force reports that concluded Schwalier and other officers did all that could have been expected of them to protect the troops in Saudi Arabia. But Cohen stopped short of the recommendations of another Pentagon panel, headed by retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, which was sharply critical of Schwalier, his superiors in the Pentagon’s Central Command, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Cohen said that because Schwalier did not report security concerns to his superiors there was no basis for disciplinary action against anyone higher in the chain of command.

The rebuke to Schwalier contrasted sharply with the course of action taken in another Middle East terrorist attack. Although a Pentagon report on the 1983 car bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which took 241 lives, was sharply critical of security precautions, then-President Ronald Reagan rejected calls for disciplinary action against the Marine commanders. He said they had “already suffered enough.”

In the wake of the Beirut bombing, Reagan removed the U.S. military from Lebanon. However, the Clinton administration rejected calls to pull out of Saudi Arabia, arguing that the deployment was essential to the national interest.

Although Fogleman has declined to talk to reporters about his decision to retire, he has made no secret of his opposition to punishment for any officers over the Khobar Towers attack.

In February, Fogleman told a congressional committee that it would be a mistake to punish anyone for the attack. Referring to calls from Capitol Hill to hold someone responsible for the tragedy, Fogleman complained of “an atmosphere of political correctness” in which Washington officials want an officer to pay when something goes wrong in the field.

“There are many commanders sitting out there in the field waiting to see what happens in this case,” Fogleman said. A ruling against Schwalier, he said, would have a “chilling effect” on commanders around the world.

But Shalikashvili rejected that argument.

“We must avoid the temptation to circle the wagons around one of our senior officers,” he said. He said commanders in the field must realize that accountability is part of the job.

Don M. Snider, a professor of civil-military relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, hailed Cohen’s decision as “a very healthy, very necessary and very needed trend” toward greater responsibility. “Unfortunately there is a growing tradition in the military that senior officers are not held accountable,” he added.

But Daniel Goure, a former Pentagon official now on the staff of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was unfair to punish Schwalier for security lapses that are inherent in peacetime garrisons in friendly countries.

Cohen acknowledged that mid-level Saudi officials had rejected U.S. efforts to move the outside fence farther from the high-rise barracks as a defense against car bombs. But Cohen said Schwalier failed to raise the issue with senior Saudi officers or ask for diplomatic help in getting Saudi approval for improved security.

Cohen was even more critical of Schwalier for failing to prepare for a possible terrorist attack.

“Schwalier recognized that a car or truck bomb parked on the edge of the Khobar complex posed a serious threat to his personnel, but he did not take adequate account of the implications of this terrorist threat or develop an effective response plan,” Cohen said. “The Khobar Towers had no effective alarm system to warn of an impending terrorist attack. The evacuation plans for residents in Khobar Tower were inadequate.”