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Friction Between Rumsfeld and the U.S. Army?

Aired May 03, 2002 - 12:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is said to be displeased with the secretary of the Army, Tom White. The source of the friction is said to be an effort by the Army to lobby Congress on behalf of a weapons system that Rumsfeld is trying to kill.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon tracking this, more for us -- Barbara, good afternoon.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Bill.

Well, indeed, in the midst of the war on terrorism, Don Rumsfeld now seems to have a major management problem on his hands here at in Pentagon. And that is whether or not his own secretary of the Army, Tom White, can continue to serve effectively.

Now, all of this blown has up in the last day or so when it was learned that, indeed, yes, the Army apparently went behind Rumsfeld's back, went to Congress, and urged Congress to maintain funding for a new $11 billion artillery program called the Crusader. Tom White, the question on the table is whether or not he directly went behind Congress' back -- behind Rumsfeld's back, excuse me, to lobby Congress to keep this program.

Rumsfeld's officials, his top staff had a meeting with White, said they wanted to kill the program off within 30 days. But this program is near and dear to the Army's heart. It is a major spending program for Army contractors. Rumsfeld wants to kill it and turn around and spend that money on advanced technology. The secretary of defense is clearly very unhappy with the Army.

He met with Tom White at White's request. White said he is now having his own inspector general look into what exactly happened. But, today, at the Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld's chief spokesman was not rushing to endorse Tom White.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Has the secretary still got full confidence in Secretary White?

VICTORIA CLARKE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: He has full confidence that they will get to the bottom of this, get to the bottom of any inappropriate behavior. And if those who are responsible for inappropriate behavior, we discover that, then they will be held accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Well, now, of course, the question is whether Tom White, the secretary of Army, committed a real political sin in this administration. And that is one of disloyalty.

And, of course, Tom White is already a subject of controversy. He is a former Enron executive. He was a high-level official in Enron before he joined the administration. And, in recent months, Congress has been asking an awful lot of questions about the circumstances in which he divested himself of Enron stock. Never accused of wrongdoing directly, but he's a secretary of the Army with yet another piece of political baggage today -- Bill.

HEMMER: Barbara, we want to get to two other subjects. Quickly here, the Black Hawk helicopters have been ordered, a large portion of them, anyway, ordered to stay on the ground. What is happening there?

STARR: Well, we learned earlier today that nearly 1,000 Black Hawk helicopters, Army helicopters, the workhorse of the fleet, have been ordered grounded temporarily.

It is unusual quite unusual from this standpoint. They discovered that a particular part near a transmission system had cracked in one of the helicopters. But it's unprecedented. This part has never cracked, never failed. And, in maintenance procedures, it's never scheduled to be replaced. They have never seen a crack in one of these. They really don't know what's wrong, so they have put them all on the ground until they can figure it out.

HEMMER: And, Barbara, on Operation Mountain Lion -- Operation Snipe, however we choose to word this, is there any evidence, Barbara, that they are actually finding any al Qaeda fighters in that section of Eastern Afghanistan?

STARR: You know, that is really the big $64 million question. It's quite mysterious.

There are nearly 1,000 coalition troops sweeping through Eastern Afghanistan as we speak, moving along the Pakistani border. But, by all accounts, it has been weeks since there has been a major encounter with any al Qaeda forces. There is really not a clear idea of where these al Qaeda may be -- a lot of speculation that, of course, many of them have slipped across the border into Pakistan and that that may be the next place coalition forces will go.

HEMMER: Barbara, thanks -- Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

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