Readers may have seen the excellent Bob Novak column “Military Industrial Complex Thrives” detailing the heroic efforts of Senator John McCain and his hard-working staffer Chris Paul to root out corruption in the Pentagon’s weapons buying, despite its resistance to their oversight. Apparently, the Defense Department Inspector General has issued a review of former Air Force Secretary James Roche’s role in helping to move forward the Boeing tanker leasing deal, particularly personal favors to other government officials that helped grease the wheels. However, only Jeff Smith at the Washington Post has gotten the goods. According to Novak: “Even the recent ruling by the Pentagon's inspector general that Roche violated military ethics laws was labeled ‘For Official Use Only.’ It is not supposed to be publicly distributed, and a Feb. 10 report in the Washington Post constitutes its only publication, with Inspector General Joseph Schmitz paraphrased rather than quoted.” POGO has been told that the Pentagon’s black magic markers are out, and that if the document ever sees the light of day, some information in the review will be redacted. If you have a copy, send it here. We’ll post it on the web so that the public can really find out what happened.
UPDATE: Thanks to KA down in the comments we have the redacted version of the DoD IG report on Roche.
The Roche report has been severely redacted, but it is on the IG website.
http://www.dodig.osd.mil/fo/foia/ERR/H04L94024201.pdf
Posted by: Keith Ashdown | Feb 24, 2005 at 04:54 PM