| Army secretary resigns { April 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38848-2003Apr25.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38848-2003Apr25.html
White Resigns As Army Secretary
By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 26, 2003; Page A01
Army Secretary Thomas E. White resigned yesterday after a two-year tenure marked by strains with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over support for an Army artillery system and controversy over White's former employment with Enron Corp.
A brief Pentagon statement announcing the resignation gave no reason for White's decision to step down as the Army's top civilian. In the statement, Rumsfeld thanked White for his service and said a departure date had not been determined.
Although speculation that White would leave his post had circulated widely for months, the timing of the announcement yesterday evening caught many in the Army by surprise. White had not informed many members of his senior staff about the move, and the Army's public affairs office also was caught off guard.
"We're a little shocked at the moment," an Army spokesman said.
Several senior defense officials said they knew of no recent event that had prompted White, 59, to submit his resignation yesterday.
White's departure opens the way for an across-the-board change in Army leadership. The top uniformed Army officer, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, is due to finish his term as chief of staff in June. No replacement has been nominated by President Bush.
As Army secretary, White is not in the military chain of command but is responsible by law for matters relating to Army personnel, installations, weapons development and finances. A West Point graduate who rose to the rank of brigadier general, he retired from the Army in 1990 and joined Enron. He was vice chairman of Enron Energy Services when Bush nominated him to the Army post in April 2001.
His corporate ties proved both bane and boon. They were what first commended him to the job, which he took vowing to "run the Army like a business." But they also exposed him to increased scrutiny from Congress and public interest groups once Enron filed one of the biggest bankruptcy cases in U.S. history in December 2001. He came under investigation by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether his contacts with former Enron colleagues violated any laws or rules, including insider trading rules.
In public testimony last year, White expressed disapproval of the accounting errors and financial misstatements of his former employer, and voiced regret that thousands of current and former employees had been devastated financially by the company's collapse. But he repeatedly denied assertions by some lawmakers that the corporate division of which he served as vice chairman helped manipulate California's energy market during the state's power crisis in 2001.
While defending his actions at Enron, White became engaged in a dispute over Rumsfeld's decision last year to cancel the Army's planned 155mm self-propelled howitzer, the Crusader. Top Army officials, including White, had strongly favored the $11 billion program, which had been in development for years. But Rumsfeld decided to cancel it in favor of newer technologies that promised lighter, more mobile precision-guided systems.
An Army lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to try to save the weapon drew Rumsfeld's ire. White was not tied directly to the lobbying, though, which involved copies of pro-Crusader "talking points" that the Army's legislative office had circulated in Congress. Rumsfeld expressed confidence in White several times, saying he had no intention of seeking White's resignation.
But White did appear to provoke more than a little annoyance again in Rumsfeld's office last month when he found himself in another dispute, this one over how large a force the United States would need to stabilize Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein's government. Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff, testified that several hundred thousand soldiers would be needed, an estimate that was sharply rejected by Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as grossly exaggerated.
White sought to avoid taking sides, noting, when asked his opinion by a congressional panel, that there were two views with expertise on both sides and commending Shinseki as "a very experienced officer."
Shortly afterward, columnist Robert Novak reported that White had come very close to being fired as a result of his refusal to distance himself from Shinseki's estimate. At the time, Rumsfeld's chief spokesman, Victoria Clarke, described talk of "some pivotal moment" triggering White's dismissal as "nonsense."
White's resignation marks the second departure of a service secretary in recent months. Gordon R. England left the office of Navy secretary in February to become deputy secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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