President Bush nominated Schmitz for the Pentagon IG position in June 2001, where he would be “responsible for conducting independent and objective audits and investigations of defense programs and impartial investigations of the allegations of misconduct by senior officers and civilian department employees.”60 The confirmation did not go smoothly, however. Schmitz’s appointment was held up by Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. During an October 2001 committee hearing, Levin questioned Schmitz about a letter he wrote to the right-wing Washington Times newspaper in 1992—three days before the presidential election between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. “Clinton practically confessed to being a security risk during the Vietnam War,” Schmitz wrote. “Now the same Bill Clinton wants to be commander in chief, but he won’t even talk about his organizing anti-war activities in England and then traveling to Moscow at the height of the Vietnam War. The KGB apparently knows more about the shady side of Bill Clinton than the American people ever will. The American people deserve better.”61 Schmitz signed the letter with his official rank of lieutenant commander, U.S. Naval Reserve.62 “Now, that was signed with your rank in the Reserves, which is the issue here,” Levin said to Schmitz during the hearing. “It’s not the views, whatever one thinks of those, but the fact that you signed it as a lieutenant commander in the US Navy Reserve.”63 Schmitz responded, telling Levin, “The letter was merely a venting exercise. It was not a reflection of my judgment at the time and it certainly is not a reflection of my judgment today.” Careful with his words, Schmitz said, “The way the newspaper published my letter and highlighted my military rank obviously raises issues. I regretted it at the time and I regret it today. I learned a very good lesson for which I am now a better man. And, more importantly, I will be a much better inspector general for having learned that lesson if I am confirmed.”64 Levin also took issue with Schmitz’s stated desire to remain on the board of a group called US English, Inc., while serving as Inspector General. “This is an organization that believes no government business should be done in any language other than English,” Levin said. “Why would you think it would be appropriate for you as inspector general to remain on the board of an advocacy group that is—obviously takes positions that would be an anathema to at least some members of the military?” After a lengthy defense of the organization, during which he accused Levin of holding a “common misconception,” Schmitz said, “It’s just a practical issue. If you want to succeed in the United States, you ought to learn English.”65 Schmitz was required to resign from US English (which he had done just prior to the hearing) to be confirmed as Inspector General, which he was in March 2002.
Joseph Schmitz would be the top U.S. official in charge of policing the biggest corporate war bonanza in history during its most explosive period. His job description identified his mission as the “prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse in the programs and operations” of the Pentagon.66 But unlike other IGs, the Pentagon’s reported directly to Rumsfeld, creating what some critics say was an inherent conflict of interest—one that was compounded by Rumsfeld’s ultracontrolling style. The Inspector General position should ideally be filled by an official determined to comb through the system looking for impropriety, corruption, and cronyism. Instead, what the Administration got in Schmitz was an official who seemingly admired the very parties he was supposed to be monitoring, not the least of whom was Rumsfeld himself. During his time at the Pentagon, Schmitz offered the following remarkable exaltation of his boss at the National Wrestling Coaches Association Coaches Clinic in St. Louis, during a speech entitled “Wrestling with Discipline: Life Lessons in Leadership:”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—my boss—is another former wrestler. He was famous for his grit and discipline on the mat. People still tell stories about the time when Don Rumsfeld dislocated his shoulder during a wrestling match. He was behind on points but he refused to quit. With one arm, he managed to take down his opponent—three more times—and emerge victorious from the contest. Secretary Rumsfeld’s iron discipline is legendary within the five walls of the Pentagon. He never allows distractions, changing public opinion, or wishful thinking to mar his focus. He is so totally focused at the task at hand that he leaves others in awe at how much he can achieve on a given day. This former wrestler too, it can be said, reigns over himself. Reigning over ourselves—and answering only to God—is the key to living a virtuous, honorable, and purpose-driven life.67
Schmitz carried around Rumsfeld’s famed twelve principles in his lapel pocket, of which the first sentence was, “Do nothing that could raise questions about the credibility of DoD.”68 Under Schmitz’s watch, corporate profiteers, many with close ties to the administration, thrived as they burned through resources ostensibly allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan. “Schmitz slowed or blocked investigations of senior Bush administration officials, spent taxpayer money on pet projects and accepted gifts that may have violated ethics guidelines,” according to an investigation by T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times.69 Miller reported that investigators working under Schmitz were so concerned about his loyalties that, at times, they stopped telling him whom they were investigating—substituting letter codes for individual names during weekly briefings—in fear that Schmitz would tip off Pentagon superiors.70 “He became very involved in political investigations that he had no business getting involved in,” a senior official in Schmitz’s office told the Times.71 “I’ve seen this office become involved in many questionable projects despite strong and persistent opposition from senior staff,” said Iowa Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley at the end of Schmitz’s tenure. “It appears to me that this has created a lack of respect and trust, and has resulted in an ineffective Office of the Inspector General.”72
In March 2003, a year after Schmitz took over as the Pentagon IG, and just as the Iraq invasion was beginning, he found himself responsible for investigating a scandal that rocked one of the key architects of the administration’s Iraq policy: Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative activist, founder of the Project for a New American Century and chair of the Defense Policy Board. Perle was close to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and had an office right next to Rumsfeld’s at the Pentagon.73 As the Iraq invasion was getting under way, the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine revealed that Perle was using his position to lobby for corporate clients in their dealings with the Defense Department.74 “Even as he advises the Pentagon on war matters, Richard N. Perle, chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board, has been retained by the telecommunications company Global Crossing to help overcome Defense Department resistance to its proposed sale to a foreign firm,” the Times reported.75 Noting that Perle was “close to many senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who appointed him to lead the policy board,” the Times revealed that Perle stood to make $725,000 from Global Crossing if the government approved the sale. The Pentagon and FBI opposed the sale because it would “put Global Crossing’s worldwide fiber optics network—one used by the United States government—under Chinese ownership.”76 In legal documents obtained by the Times, Perle blatantly peddled his Pentagon position to explain why he was uniquely qualified to help Global Crossing. “As the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, I have a unique perspective on and intimate knowledge of the national defense and security issues that will be raised” in the review process, Perle wrote.77
When the news broke, Perle quickly resigned his chairmanship of the advisory board, while maintaining his innocence. In resigning, Perle told Rumsfeld he didn’t want the scandal to distract from “the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged” in Iraq.78 Rumsfeld asked Perle to remain on the board, which he did. Representative John Conyers called for an investigation of Perle, and the case was sent to Joseph Schmitz. After a six-month investigation, Schmitz exonerated Perle of any wrongdoing, saying, “We have completed our inquiry regarding the conduct of Mr. Perle and did not subst
antiate allegations of misconduct.”79 Despite exposés in almost every leading news outlet in the country about Perle’s multiple conflicts of interest, the Inspector General’s report “found insufficient basis to conclude that Mr. Perle created the appearance of impropriety from the perspective of a reasonable person.”80 Perle said he was “very pleased”81 with Schmitz’s conclusion, while Rumsfeld declared, “The Inspector General’s report confirms the integrity of the Defense Policy Board and Mr. Perle’s participation.”82
Not long after the revelations about Richard Perle’s business dealings, another controversy erupted about a powerful senior official in Rumsfeld’s inner circle, Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform. Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at twenty-three religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two.83 Among Boykin’s statements, he said he knew the United States would prevail over a Muslim adversary in Somalia because “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”84 Boykin also charged that Islamic radicals want to destroy America “because we’re a Christian nation”85 that “will never abandon Israel.”86 Our “spiritual enemy,” Boykin declared, “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”87 As for President Bush, Boykin said, “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”88 In another speech, Boykin said other countries “have lost their morals, lost their values. But America is still a Christian nation.”89 He told a church group in Oregon that special operations forces were victorious in Iraq because of their faith in God. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that the battle that we’re in is a spiritual battle,” he said. “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.”90
Boykin was a career military officer, one of the first Delta Force commandos who rose through the ranks to become head of the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command. He had served in the Central Intelligence Agency, and during the war on terror, he had been in charge of Army Special Forces before joining Rumsfeld’s close-knit leadership team, where he was placed in charge of hunting “high-value targets.”91 Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq. Asked in a Congressional inquiry about the similarities between the U.S. Phoenix program in Vietnam and special operations in the war on terror, Boykin said: “I think we’re running that kind of program. We’re going after these people. Killing or capturing these people is a legitimate mission for the department. I think we’re doing what the Phoenix program was designed to do, without all of the secrecy.”92 Military analyst William Arkin, who first revealed Boykin’s comments, wrote, “When Boykin publicly spews this intolerant message while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, he strongly suggests that this is an official and sanctioned view—and that the U.S. Army is indeed a Christian army. But that’s only part of the problem. Boykin is also in a senior Pentagon policymaking position, and it’s a serious mistake to allow a man who believes in a Christian ‘jihad’ to hold such a job. . . . Boykin has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his Army superiors but from God—which is a worrisome line of command. For another, it is both imprudent and dangerous to have a senior officer guiding the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan who believes that Islam is an idolatrous, sacrilegious religion against which we are waging a holy war.”93 When Boykin came under fire for his anti-Muslim comments, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon brass vigorously defended him. “Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a secret operation to ‘Gitmoize’ . . . the Abu Ghraib prison,” wrote former Clinton senior adviser Sidney Blumenthal. “He had flown to Guantanamo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld’s orders.”94
Amid outcry from human rights groups and Arab and Muslim organizations, Boykin personally requested that Schmitz’s department at the Pentagon conduct an investigation into any potential wrongdoing on his part.95 Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Boykin “is anxious to have the investigator do the investigator’s job.”96 After a ten-month review, Schmitz’s office essentially cleared Boykin, concluding the general had violated three internal Pentagon regulations. “Although it was the substance of Boykin’s remarks and not his regard for Pentagon rules that aroused controversy, the report pointedly steered clear of comment on the appropriateness of Boykin’s injection of religion into his depiction of the military’s counterterrorism efforts, including his claims that a ‘demonic presence’ lay behind the actions of radical Muslims,” reported the Washington Post.97 The paper quoted a senior Defense official who “said the report is seen as a ‘complete exoneration’ that ultimately found Boykin responsible for a few ‘relatively minor offenses’ related to technical and bureaucratic issues.”98
In June 2004, Schmitz traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan and upon his return gave a major address titled “American Principles as Potent Weapons and Potential Casualties in the Global War on Terror.”99 At the time, the scandal over prisoner torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was still fresh in the United States, and Schmitz, who was in charge of investigating the abuse, did his best to whitewash the scandal. He blamed Abu Ghraib on a few “bad eggs,”100 saying, “I’m not aware of any illegal orders that came from any leaders.”101 He told an audience at the City Club of Cleveland, “The few systemic breakdowns, and the reprehensible actions of a few of our own people—who are even now being brought to justice—should not overshadow the sacrifices and accomplishments of the thousands of courageous Americans who continue to serve honorably in the best tradition of the United States Armed Forces.”102 Schmitz said that he had been to Abu Ghraib and “another detainee collection point” in Afghanistan “to learn more about the rules, standards, and procedures we use to collect intelligence and otherwise to deal with the known and potential terrorists we capture in the course of our ongoing military operations. The more time I spend with our forward-deployed troops, listening to their stories and watching them perform their duties, the more I understand why the terrorists hate us so much. Beyond any doubt, we owe our American men and women now serving overseas a debt of gratitude. I cannot begin to tell you what an awesome and honorable job American troops are doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”103 The terrorists, Schmitz said, “refuse to recognize the very standards of behavior that distinguish civilization from barbarism.” Even after the revelations of systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, he said, “We are still, by the grace of God, the beacon of hope to the world.”104 While speaking at length about the “rule of law” that governs the United States, Schmitz told the audience, “We ought not let the bad news coming out of Abu Ghraib eclipse the fact that we’ve got some great American sons and daughters of regular Americans, farmers and whatever, and they’re over there doing great work for you and for me.”105 In Afghanistan and Iraq, Schmitz said, “I saw American soldiers doing what we ‘Yanks’ have always done, being affable liberators, befriending the local people when they can, and chafing at the lack of contact when prevented from doing so by threats of violence from a shadowy and cowardly enemy.”106
Like General Boykin, Schmitz often gave speeches during his tenure at the Pentagon that were overtly soaked in religious and Christian rhetoric and demeaning of other cultures and traditions. “The rule of law can scarcely be said to exist in tribal cultures, such as, for example, parts of Iraq and Afghanistan, where loyalty to one’s own often trumps everything—honesty, the law, fairness, and even common sense,” Schmitz said in a March 2004 speech.107 In anothe
r, he declared, “The men and women of our armed forces today do not doubt the enduring principles that make America great—the same principles President Reagan mentioned in the midst of the Cold War: ‘individual responsibility, representative government, and the rule of law under God.’”108 Schmitz ended his address by quoting Donald Rumsfeld’s “admonition” in the aftermath of 9/11: “We pray this day, Heavenly Father, the prayer our nation learned at another time of righteous struggle and noble cause—America’s enduring prayer: Not that God will be on our side, but always, O Lord, that America will be on Your side.” Schmitz then told the audience, “If we want to remain one nation, under the rule of law and under God, we must always hold ourselves to a higher standard.”109
So prevalent was the religious rhetoric in Schmitz’s speeches that after one, he was told by an audience member, “The flavor of your speech has kind of troubled me because I always believed that the Constitution is a secular document, and I thought government is supposed to be a secular organization. I find that the church/state separation has been blurred by this Administration.”110 Schmitz proceeded to ignore the question, babbling on about chaplains in the military, before the questioner said, “That wasn’t the tenor that I had. I thought I was talking about—.” At that point, Schmitz interrupted the man and declared, “The American people, unlike other people around the world, are profoundly religious. That’s a historical and a current fact. So for us to pretend, somehow, that we shouldn’t be acknowledging the existence of Almighty God is just—it ignores reality, Sir. I’m sorry to have to say that. But that’s how I see it.”111
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