Gen. Barry McCaffrey's press photo.

Barry Richard McCaffrey (b. November 17, 1942, Taunton, Massachusetts) is a retired United States Army General. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at the United States Military Academy, where he had been the Bradley Professor of International Security Studies from 2001 to 2005. He is also a NBC and MSNBC military analyst as well as a consultant for BR McCaffrey Associates ([1]). Image File history File linksMetadata Gen. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Gen. ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... It has been suggested that United States Army values be merged into this article or section. ... Army shoulder insignia for a full General General is the most senior rank currently used in the United States Army, United States Air Force and United States Marine Corps. ... USMA redirects here. ... This article is about the year 2001. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

McCaffrey attended Phillips Academy. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (Class of 1964), and holds an MA from American University. In addition to serving as a professor at the USMA, he is also a military commentator on television. Phillips Academy (also known as Andover, Phillips Andover, or simply P.A.) is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... A Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic masters degree awarded by universities in North America and the United Kingdom (excluding the ancient universities of Scotland and Oxbridge. ... For other universities known as American University, see American University (disambiguation). ...

He fought in the Vietnam War, where he was wounded, and the Gulf War. During Operation Desert Storm, McCaffrey commanded the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In Operation Desert Storm he was known for his speed and boldness. Joe Galloway, the co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, rode with and reported on the division, where he favorably compared McCaffrey with Hal Moore. Over the course of his military career, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice, the Purple Heart three times and the Silver Star twice. In his career, McCaffrey rose to become the youngest General in the Army at the time of his promotion. Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Combatants Kuwait United States United Kingdom Saudi Arabia Egypt Qatar France Canada UN Coalition Republic of Iraq Commanders Norman Schwarzkopf Saddam Hussein Strength 660,000 360,000 Casualties 378 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 dead, 75,000 wounded The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) was a... See also: 2003 invasion of Iraq and Gulf War (disambiguation) C Company, 1st Battalion, The Staffordshire Regiment, 1st UK Armoured Division The Persian Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of 34 nations led by the United States. ... The Hawaiian Division, now called the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)—also known as the Victory Division—was an infantry division of the United States Army with base of operations at Fort Riley, Kansas. ... The Distinguished Service Medal (D.S.M.) is a military decoration for courage. ... Combatants U.S.-led coalition Iraq Commanders George H. W. Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell Saddam Hussein, Ali Hassan Al-Majid, Hussein Kamel Strength 660,000 ~545,000 Casualties 345 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 - 100,000 dead, 100,000 - 300,000 wounded The 1991 Gulf War (also Persian... We Were Soldiers Once . ... Harold G. Hal Moore (born February 13, 1922) is a former U.S. Army Lieutenant General. ... The Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) is the second highest military decoration of the United States Army, awarded for extreme gallantry and risk of life in actual combat with an armed enemy force. ... A Purple Heart medal For the plant genus, see Purpleheart. ... The Silver Star is the fifth highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of the United States Armed Forces, and the third highest given for valor (in the face of the enemy). ...

General McCaffrey's last command in the Army was that of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the unified command responsible for U.S. military activities in Central and South America. He commanded SOUTHCOM, whose headquarters were then in the Republic of Panama, from 1994 to 1996. Besides managing military personnel, as part of his duties in Panama, McCaffrey supported humanitarian operations for over 10,000 Cuban refugees in 1996. It was also during his last military position that he created the first Human Rights Council and Human Rights Code of Conduct for U.S. Military Joint Command. USSOUTHCOM emblem The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM, or informally: SOUTHCOM) is a Unified Combatant Command responsible for all United States military activities in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean basin (except Cuba and Puerto Rico, which are the responsibility of United States Northern Command). ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...

He is well-known for having been Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2001. As Drug Czar, General McCaffrey (ret.) was instrumental in negotiating a deal to place anti-drug messages in prime time television shows without acknowledging that these messages were paid for by his Office.[2] This created quite a scandal when it was revealed in Salon.com, and the practice was later declared illegal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President George W. Bush.^{[citation needed]} The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a component of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, was established in 1988 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. ... The presidential seal was used by President Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... This article is about the year 2001. ... Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Keith Hellawell, former Drug Czar in the United Kingdom. ... Screenshot of Salon. ... The FCCs official seal. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...

Allegations of misconduct during the Gulf War

Account of the incident from The General's War

In The General's War, authors Michael Gordon (New York Times) and Bernard Trainor (U.S. Marine Corps, retired), note that the U.S. Army's objective in the western desert of Iraq was to degrade Saddam Hussein's military capability by destroying the Republican Guard, especially its equipment, while the Marine Corps forces liberated Kuwait. The VII Corps and XVIII Corps of the army were about to heavily engage the Republican Guard when a ceasefire was declared at the behest of Bush administration officials. The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... United States Marine Corps Emblem The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is the second smallest of the five branches of the United States armed forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve Marines as of 2002. ... Republican Guard is the organization of a republic which serves to protect the President and the government. ...

After the cease fire was declared, McCaffrey's ordered his unit, the 24th Infantry Division, to push forward to a point where it would be in between the retreating Iraqis forces, who were coming up from the south, and the northern direction they were headed. He did so without explicit orders from his superiors. This put the division in prime position to bump into retreating Iraqi forces and be fired upon by the Iraqis. Such fire from the Iraqis would give the 24th Infantry Division pretext to return fire under the doctrine of self-defense, and this occurred.

McCaffrey claims his division received fire from an Iraqi. Units of the 24th Infantry Division, under McCaffrey's direction, unleashed a fury of fire, disproportionate force, in return. It used all the assets at its disposal and wiped out the Iraqi forces.

New Yorker article

According to an article written by Seymour Hersh published in 2000 The New Yorker, General McCaffrey committed war crimes during the Gulf War by having troops under his command kill retreating Iraqis after a ceasefire had been declared. Hersh's article "quotes senior officers decrying the lack of discipline and proportionality in the McCaffrey-ordered attack." One colonel told Hersh that it "made no sense for a defeated army to invite their own death. ... It came across as shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone was incredulous." [3] Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron (Sy) Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and author based in New York City. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ... In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under International Law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ... Combatants Kuwait United States United Kingdom Saudi Arabia Egypt Qatar France Canada UN Coalition Republic of Iraq Commanders Norman Schwarzkopf Saddam Hussein Strength 660,000 360,000 Casualties 378 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 dead, 75,000 wounded The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) was a... A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war, or any armed conflict, where each side of the conflict agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. ...

These charges had been made by Army personnel after the war and an Army investigation had cleared McCaffrey of any wrongdoing. Hersh dismissed the findings of the investigation, writing that "few soldiers report crimes, because they don't want to jeopardize their Army careers."

Hersh describes his interview with Private First Class Charles Sheehan-Miles:

When I asked Sheehan-Miles why he fired, he replied, "At that point, we were shooting everything. Guys in the company told me later that some were civilians. It wasn't like they came at us with a gun. It was that they were there -- 'in the wrong place at the wrong time.'" Although Sheehan-Miles is unsure whether he and his fellow-tankers were ever actually fired upon during the war, he is sure that there was no significant enemy fire. "We took some incoming once, but it was friendly fire," he said. "The folks we fought never had a chance." He came away from Iraq convinced that he and his fellow-soldiers were, as another tanker put it, part of "the biggest firing squad in history."

McCaffrey's and Powell's rebuttals to allegations of misconduct

McCaffrey denied the charges and attacked what he called Hersh's "revisionist history" of the Gulf War. According to Georgie Anne Geyer of the Chicago Tribune from May 2000, Hersh’s accusations were disputed by a number of military personnel, who later claimed to have been misquoted by the journalist. She argues that this may have been Hersh’s misguided attempt to break another My Lai story, and that he "could not possibly like a man such as McCaffrey, who is so temperamentally and philosophically different from him…” Finally, she suggests that Hersh may also have been motivated to attack the general for McCaffrey’s role as the drug czar.[4] The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois. ... Photographs of the My Lai massacre provoked world outrage and became a national scandal. ...

Lt. Gen. Steven Arnold, interviewed by Hersh for the controversial article, was one of the officers who later claimed to have been misquoted. He wrote the editor of The New Yorker saying "I know that my brief comments in the article were not depicted in an entirely accurate manner and were taken out of context…. When the Iraqi forces fired on elements of the 24th Infantry Division, they were clearly committing a hostile act. I regret having granted an interview with Mr. Hersh. The tone and thrust of the article places me in a position of not trusting or respecting General Barry McCaffrey, and nothing could be further from the truth." [5]

Similar criticism came from Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Iraq War, who described the Hersh article as "attempted character assassination on General McCaffrey," in an interview with Sam Donaldson for the TV show This Week, in May of 2000. General Colin Luther Powell, United States Army (Ret. ... In several countries, Secretary of State is a senior government position. ... The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer of the United States military, and the principal military advisor to the President of the United States. ... Samuel Andrew Donaldson (born March 11, 1934 in El Paso, Texas) was a news anchor for ABC News, known for his persistence in questioning senior government officials up to and including the President of the United States. ... This Week is one of the American Sunday-morning interview shows. ...

ABC investigation of misconduct allegations

ABC News followed up on Hersh's report in June 2000, interviewing six soldiers from the platoon of scouts under the command of Gen. McCaffrey. All six confirmed Hersh's report, telling ABC News that they witnessed the attack. Two of the scouts, Edward Walker and David Collatt, claim to have witnessed the attack from 200 yards away.

ABC interviewed Major General John LeMoyne, who oversaw the Army investigation into the charges against McCaffrey. LeMoyne denies the incident occurred: "Nobody was killed. None, zero. Soldiers--the Iraqi soldiers were never shot at, ever, at that point. None of us, hundreds and hundreds of us ever saw a body. None of us."

ABC reviewed LeMoyne's investigation and found it "flawed and incomplete. The Army failed to interview the aide Le Moyne told investigators he immediately sent to the area. It failed to interview many of the Scouts, and it failed to interview all the Bradley crews. While the Army did conclude there was firing, it failed to establish which Bradleys were firing. The Bradley crew members who did submit statements denied any knowledge of the incident and denied shooting at anything. Further, the Army failed to establish why there was firing at all in an area known to hold the prisoners. To this day, Battalion Commander Charles Ware does not have a clear explanation."

Comments on Iraq War

In June of 2005, he surveyed Iraq on behalf of U.S. Central Command and wrote an optimistic report afterwards [6]. In it, he says the U.S. senior military leadership team is superb and predicts the insurgency will reach its peak from January-to-September 2006, allowing for U.S. force withdrawls in the late summer of 2006. A year later, however, after visiting Iraq again, his assessment was grim: "Iraq is abject misery...I think it's a terribly dangerous place for diplomats and journalists and contractors and Iraqi mothers. Trying to go about daily life in that city is a real nightmare for these poor people." He called Abu Ghraib "the biggest mistake that happened so far." [7]. In an official memorandum [8], McCaffrey nevertheless expressed optimism about the operation's longer term future: "The situation is perilous, uncertain, and extreme — but far from hopeless. The U.S. Armed Forces are a rock. This is the most competent and brilliantly led military in a tactical and operational sense that we have ever fielded.... There is no reason why the U.S. cannot achieve our objectives in Iraq. Our aim must be to create a viable federal state under the rule of law which does not: enslave its own people, threaten its neighbors, or produce weapons of mass destruction. This is a ten year task. We should be able to draw down most of our combat forces in 3-5 years. We have few alternatives to the current US strategy which is painfully but gradually succeeding. This is now a race against time. Do we have the political will, do we have the military power, will we spend the resources required to achieve our aims?" His assessment noted several negative areas as well as very positive areas in the struggle for democracy in the country. Emblem of the United States Central Command. ... Map of Iraq highlighting Abu Ghraib The city of Abu Ghraib (BGN/PCGN romanization: AbÅ« Ghurayb; أبو غريب in Arabic) in Iraq is located 32 kilometres (20 mi) west of Baghdads city center, or some 15 km northwest of Baghdad International Airport. ...

References

Daniel Forbes, "Gulf War Crimes?" Salon.com (15 May 2000).

Georgie Anne Geyer, "Seymour Hersh's Gulf War Misconceptions," Chicago Tribune (19 May 2000) p. 23.

Seymour Hersh, "Overwhelming Force: What Happened in the Final Days of the Gulf War?" The New Yorker (22 May 2000).

Jackie Judd (Reporter) and Peter Jennings (Anchor), "Investigation into Killing of Unarmed Iraqi Soldiers," ABC World News Tonight (15 June 2000). Transcript.

Barry R. McCaffrey, "The New Yorker's Revisionist History," Wall Street Journal (22 May 2000).

George Stephanopoulos (Reporter) and Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts (Anchors), "General Colin Powell Discusses His Group America's Promise," This Week from ABC News (21 May 2000) Transcript. This Week is one of the American Sunday-morning interview shows. ...

External links

• Biography at the National Infantry Foundation website