JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, Reimbursement Program for Troops Stalls:

The Pentagon has not completed guidelines for allowing soldiers, their families and charities to be reimbursed for some combat equipment they bought for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, a year after the passage of legislation calling for such a program.

The measure, which allows for groups and individuals to make claims of up to $1,100, called for the Department of Defense to set rules for a reimbursement program by February 2005.

The sponsor of the original legislation, Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, says he plans to introduce an amendment to a defense bill this week to take authority for the program from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and give it to military commanders in the field.

"We should not be sending our young men and women into harm's way less than as well prepared as their nation can prepare them and provide them with the kind of protection they deserve," Mr. Dodd said. "The Pentagon has never acted on this legislation despite the fact that it is the law of the land."

"It has been frustrating," he said. "And the problem still persists."

On Friday, a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, said in an e-mail message that Defense Department officials were "in the final stages of putting a reimbursement program together and it is expected to be operating soon." Colonel Krenke declined to discuss a reason for the delay.

Army surveys have shown that infantry members spend hundreds of dollars of their own money each year on gloves, boots, flashlights and other tools used in combat.

ANALYSIS: Soldiers often buy equipment other than that issued to them because it works better. For instance, most soldiers buy MiniMag or similar flashlights instead of the issue angle-head flashlight because it is more manageable and works better. These nickel-and-dime items add up after a while. Moreover, some soldiers had to buy their own body armor before deploying to Iraq because it wasn't fielded to their unit yet. (When I deployed to Kosovo, many of my pilots anted up for their own body armor.) On some level, that is simply a part of being a soldier, spending some money so you can be more effective. However, there's no excuse for a private first class spending $1500 on an interceptor body armor because his unit was shortchanged.

Moreover, a key principle of fiscal law is that money appropriated by Congress must be spent and spent in the manner it was earmarked. The fact that a year has passed and the services have not implemented a plan to spend that money is unacceptable.


Former Army Chaplain James Yee, Who Faced Espionage Charges at Guantanamo (USA Today)

In other news from the Times, In New Book Ex-Chaplain at Guantanamo Tells of Abuses:

James J. Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, says in a new book that military authorities knowingly created an atmosphere in which guards would feel free to abuse prisoners.

Mr. Yee, 37, is a former Army captain and a West Point graduate who was arrested and imprisoned in 2003 on suspicion of espionage. It was a case that, in the end, proved groundless, to the embarrassment of the Pentagon.

Mr. Yee was ultimately deemed guilty of minor administrative charges involving adultery and the presence of pornography on his computer, and given an honorable discharge. But those convictions, too, were later dropped.

The book, "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," offers Mr. Yee's first public comments on what occurred at the camp while he was there.

In the book, to be published this week by PublicAffairs, Mr. Yee writes that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the prison's commanding officer - who would later become Mr. Yee's chief antagonist in pressing suspicions of espionage against him - regularly incited anger toward the prisoners with emotional slogans delivered to the troops.

Mr. Yee writes that when General Miller visited the prison, he would tell the guards sternly, "The war is on." That remark and similar comments, Mr. Yee writes, were designed to let soldiers know they were operating in a combat environment where it was understood that rules protecting detainees were relaxed and instances of mistreatment would be overlooked.

"Soldiers know that when you are in combat there's considerable leniency in the rules," Mr. Yee said in an interview, "and the leaders, including General Miller, wanted to put them in that frame of mind."

He said that General Miller told him that he remained deeply angry over the loss of military friends who were killed in the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The general, who is now assigned to duty in the Pentagon, declined through a spokesman to comment on the book.

Mr. Yee says the guards were constantly reminded of the Sept. 11 attacks by General Miller and others, and they "retaliated in whatever way they could" against the detainees.

Categories: Fiscal+Law, Guantanamo, Espionage, Detainee+Abuse, Newspapers