Army Surgeon General Is Forced Out Over Walter Reed Scandal
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — The Army forced its surgeon general, Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, to retire, officials said yesterday, the third high-level official to lose his job over poor outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
General Kiley, who headed Walter Reed between 2002 and 2004, has been a lightning rod for criticism over conditions at the Army’s premier medical facility, including during congressional hearings last week. Soldiers and their families have complained about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic delays at the hospital overwhelmed with wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
General Kiley submitted his retirement request on Sunday, the Army said in a statement.
“We must move quickly to fill this position — this leader will have a key role in moving the way forward in meeting the needs of our wounded warriors,” Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said in an Army statement.
Mr. Geren asked General Kiley to retire, said a senior defense official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Defense Secretary Gates was not involved in the decision to ask General Kiley to retire, the official said.
General Kiley’s removal underscored how the fallout over Walter Reed’s shoddy conditions has yet to subside. Instead, the controversy has mushroomed into questions about how wounded soldiers and veterans are treated throughout the medical systems run by the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs and has become a major preoccupation of a Bush administration already struggling to defend the unpopular war in Iraq.
“I submitted my retirement because I think it is in the best interest of the Army,” General Kiley said in yesterday’s statement.
In other military news, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday he considers homosexuality to be immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gay soldiers to serve openly, the Chicago Tribune reported. General Peter Pace likened homosexuality to adultery, which he said was also immoral, the newspaper reported on its Web site.
