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American Morning
Key Senator Recommending Reassignment of Army General
Aired October 22, 2003 - 07:39 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: A key senator is recommending the reassignment of an Army general while his controversial remarks about Muslims are investigated.
Barbara Starr from the Pentagon watching this story and joins us now live -- good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.
Well, indeed, the controversy over Lieutenant General William Boykin continues to grow here at the Pentagon. There will now be an inspector general investigation of General Boykin's speeches and remarks to religious groups to see if those comments violated any military policies. And, yes, indeed, Senator John Warner, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is now calling for General Boykin to be temporarily reassigned while this inspector general investigation goes on, a very unusual move.
Here's what Senator Warner had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN WARNER (R-VA), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I think just temporarily, without any prejudice whatsoever, ask him to take on another assignment until this matter is fully examined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: Now, Senator Warner and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, actually wrote to Secretary Rumsfeld last Friday expressing their very deep concern about this whole matter. Part of what they said was they said that public statements by a senior military official of an "inflammatory, offensive nature," quoting the senators, "that would denigrate another religion and could be construed as bigotry may easily be exploited by enemies of the United States." The letter going on to say that all of this could place U.S. soldiers serving in Muslim countries at risk.
So what's the reaction from the Pentagon? Well, this morning we spoke to senior aids to Secretary Rumsfeld. They said they are holding firm. There are no plans to reassign General Boykin -- Bill.
HEMMER: You mentioned Donald Rumsfeld. The front page of "USA Today" reports on this memo that the secretary of defense set out that really spells out a much longer detail and job for the U.S. in Iraq.
What more do we have on that, Barbara? STARR: This is a typical Don Rumsfeld memo to senior staff. This is what he likes to do, pose a number of questions, a number of problems, put them out there and get some answers back from his staff. What he says in this memo is that the U.S., quoting the memo in "USA Today," is going to have "a long, hard slog" in its operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The secretary points out that, indeed, while progress is being made, there is still plenty to do. One of the questions he asks the staff to answer for him, for example, is is the U.S. killing and capturing more terrorists at a rate faster than young people in the Islamic world are being recruited into terrorist organizations? He asks what should the U.S. be doing, for example, about the madrassas, those radical Islamic schools that so often are the training ground, the breeding ground for people who then join terrorist organizations.
He talks about the fact that while it costs the U.S. billions of dollars to fight the war on terrorism, the terrorists actually have a much leaner budget. They can make a lot of progress with their agenda, of course, for very little money. So he wants some answers from his senior staff about how the United States can really begin to approach this problem and have some long-term solutions. He says he's looking for innovative ways -- Bill.
HEMMER: Thank you, Barbara.
Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 22, 2003 - 07:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A key senator is recommending the reassignment of an Army general while his controversial remarks about Muslims are investigated.
Barbara Starr from the Pentagon watching this story and joins us now live -- good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.
Well, indeed, the controversy over Lieutenant General William Boykin continues to grow here at the Pentagon. There will now be an inspector general investigation of General Boykin's speeches and remarks to religious groups to see if those comments violated any military policies. And, yes, indeed, Senator John Warner, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is now calling for General Boykin to be temporarily reassigned while this inspector general investigation goes on, a very unusual move.
Here's what Senator Warner had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN WARNER (R-VA), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I think just temporarily, without any prejudice whatsoever, ask him to take on another assignment until this matter is fully examined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: Now, Senator Warner and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, actually wrote to Secretary Rumsfeld last Friday expressing their very deep concern about this whole matter. Part of what they said was they said that public statements by a senior military official of an "inflammatory, offensive nature," quoting the senators, "that would denigrate another religion and could be construed as bigotry may easily be exploited by enemies of the United States." The letter going on to say that all of this could place U.S. soldiers serving in Muslim countries at risk.
So what's the reaction from the Pentagon? Well, this morning we spoke to senior aids to Secretary Rumsfeld. They said they are holding firm. There are no plans to reassign General Boykin -- Bill.
HEMMER: You mentioned Donald Rumsfeld. The front page of "USA Today" reports on this memo that the secretary of defense set out that really spells out a much longer detail and job for the U.S. in Iraq.
What more do we have on that, Barbara? STARR: This is a typical Don Rumsfeld memo to senior staff. This is what he likes to do, pose a number of questions, a number of problems, put them out there and get some answers back from his staff. What he says in this memo is that the U.S., quoting the memo in "USA Today," is going to have "a long, hard slog" in its operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The secretary points out that, indeed, while progress is being made, there is still plenty to do. One of the questions he asks the staff to answer for him, for example, is is the U.S. killing and capturing more terrorists at a rate faster than young people in the Islamic world are being recruited into terrorist organizations? He asks what should the U.S. be doing, for example, about the madrassas, those radical Islamic schools that so often are the training ground, the breeding ground for people who then join terrorist organizations.
He talks about the fact that while it costs the U.S. billions of dollars to fight the war on terrorism, the terrorists actually have a much leaner budget. They can make a lot of progress with their agenda, of course, for very little money. So he wants some answers from his senior staff about how the United States can really begin to approach this problem and have some long-term solutions. He says he's looking for innovative ways -- Bill.
HEMMER: Thank you, Barbara.
Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
