Top General Accused of Blocking Corruption Probe to Help Obama

One of the US Army's rising stars stands accused of obstructing an inquiry into widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Afghan forces he mentored. And if the charges are accurate, they could end the career of one of the military's top officers.
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Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV speaks to troops in Afghanistan. Photo: DoDMC2 (SW) Christopher Hall


Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, until last year the US officer in charge of training Afghan security forces, allegedly blocked a Defense Department inspector general investigation into a pattern of misconduct exhibited by the Afghan National Army's medical division. Aided by his senior staff, Caldwell prevented that inquiry to spare his command embarrassment ahead of US national elections.

"How could we think to invite the DOD IG [the Pentagon inspector general] in during an election cycle?" Caldwell allegedly upbraided subordinate officers who favored an outside inquiry in fall 2010. Caldwell, supposedly in an "emotional" state, yelled, "You should know better!"

The accusations are laid out in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (.pdf), who calls the incident an apparent "cover up." The Wall Street Journal first reported the letter's contents.

President Obama "calls me Bill," Caldwell allegedly bragged, according to the letter. The general supposedly didn't want to spoil that first-name relationship with a messy inquiry into corruption and wrongdoing at Afghan hospitals.

Since then, Caldwell has assumed command of US Army North in Texas, following a series of plum assignments. The son of a prominent Army general himself, his career trajectory has resembled that of another prestigious, esteemed general -- David Petraeus. Caldwell commanded an airborne division at war (the 82nd; Petraeus ran the 101st); then took a senior appointment to Iraq as chief spokesman there; ran the Army's big-think Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth (as Petraeus did before him); and then took a crucial job in Afghanistan running the training of Afghan forces (eventually under the command of Petraeus, who did the same job in Iraq). With a massive budget, Caldwell’s training efforts were considered the key to extricating the US military from combat in Afghanistan, a critical objective for Obama. Caldwell once told confidantes he considered himself fit to run the entire Afghanistan war.

Lt. Gen. William Caldwell briefs House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in Afghanistan, 2011. Photo: Flickr/Office of Nancy Pelosi

Many of the allegations against Caldwell come from Air Force Col. Schuyler Geller, who served as Caldwell's command surgeon when Caldwell ran the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A). A memo from Geller recounting Afghan corruption and Caldwell's reaction, dated 2011, was acquired by Danger Room under the condition we not publish it. He outlines "a significant level of corruption" by the Afghan military medical organization, which he helped mentor. That corruption, he charges, was "known to be present by NTM-A's Senior Army leadership."

"Scores of millions" of dollars in U.S. taxpayer aid to the Afghan Army medical corps disappeared from the official balance sheets, Geller charges, and into what looked to Geller like a criminal enterprise for selling pharmaceuticals meant for Afghan troops. Despite nearly $180 million in U.S. taxpayer money since 2008 for the Afghan medics, Afghan troops far from Kabul have reported a lack of medical support and supplies. "It was clear that financial management at the [Afghan National Army] surgeon general's office was known by NTM-A Programs leadership in March of 2010," Geller writes.

But it wasn't just financial irregularities and pill-selling. Physicians, including surgeons, went into the Afghan military based on political connections, since they could earn "five to eight times" in uniform what they could working for the Afghan public-health system. The result was "suspicions of fuel diversion" at the main Kabul military hospital, where Geller says "patients [were] horrendously neglected and abused." A medical colonel once had a student nurse beaten for requesting the colonel not be verbally abusive, going so far as to pull out his pistol and chamber a round -- all in a dining hall.

Geller and his colleagues, all colonels and captains, took their concerns to Caldwell and his staff in the fall of 2010. They sought a top-to-bottom inquiry into the Afghan army medical organization from the Defense Department's inspector general. Initially, Caldwell's chief civilian deputy approved the request, calling it a "no-brainer." Then, allegedly, Caldwell thought otherwise.

Caldwell "directed a retraction of the request," Geller said. One of Caldwell's top officers, Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, had "concerns about the Congressional election next week," and suggested punting on the inspector general request until after the vote. "Three attorneys in the room" told Patton they "recommended against anything in writing to the effect that the decision was timed to the elections."

Caldwell personally reprimanded Geller and his colleagues, allegedly yelling "you should have known better" than to pass the inquiry recommendation to the inspector general, putting Caldwell in the awkward position of retracting it after it came to the inspector general's attention. According to Geller, Caldwell limited the scope of the request for an outside inspector-general inquiry to "pharmaceuticals, medical logistics and mentoring," instead of the "more comprehensive" inquiry Geller wanted.

Geller left Afghanistan in February 2011. "[T]o date no improvement has occurred" in the Afghan army medical corps' hiring practices, he writes in his memo. Caldwell runs U.S. Army North -- the same unit commanded 35 years ago by his father. Last week, Patton, a two-star general, became the incoming leader of the Pentagon's sexual-assault prevention and response team.

Caldwell has previously faced accusations that he manipulated politicians and public opinion to make his command look better. The specifics of those allegations turned out to be less than met the eye -- and Danger Room defended the general at time. But that doesn't necessarily mean Caldwell was squeaky clean. If what Geller is saying is true, then some of the corruption of the Afghan army medical corps rubbed off on Caldwell. It could well make him unfit for command. Generals have seen their careers ended for much, much less.

Caldwell is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as any American citizen, and the accusations against him are not proof. (He did not respond to requests to comment for this article.) Chaffetz is seeking a deeper Pentagon investigation of Caldwell, and demanding that Panetta dig into this "apparent atempt by senior U.S. military officials to delay the exposure of -- or cover up -- these atrocities for political reasons." At the Pentagon on Tuesday, spokesman George Little told Danger Room he was "unaware" that the accusations against Caldwell "were known prior to his most recent assignment." He didn't specify how this might impact Caldwell's until-now skyrocketing career.