Secretary of Defense Peat hegseth Accused independent guards for Punctic Being a “weapon” and states that he is overhale to the Inspector General’s office, the way members of the service reports misuse and other problems.
Hegseth unveiled plans during a speech at an unusual gathering of hundreds of top military leaders this week. He signed a memo by ordering the Inspector General, which makes a complaint instead of identifying anyone, which allows them to be anonymous, the Inspector General to dismiss any complaint, “Non-Craftsman”, and set a new, tight time for complaints and investigated for completion.
Along with a decree, the military policy on hedging, bullying and harassment is highly widespread, “Hegseth’s instructions have raised concerns between advocates and experts, who say that the years of progress of change have helped to protect women and minorities from misconduct and will turn off the path to register valid complaints.
It is widely part of a broader push by the Trump administration, which funds the community of inspectors fundamentally to complete the waste, fraud and abuse in government agencies. More than a dozen guards were fired in January amid a major disintegration of public integrity railings since the President. Donald Trump Handed over the post.
Hegseth aims to Inspector General as he faces signal investigation
Hegseth on Tuesday told military leaders without offering evidence, “Changes are necessary to fix a process that” complainants, ideologies and poor artists have been put to weapons, ideologies and poor artists. ,
The Hegseth is overhauling the office as he himself is investigating the use of the signal messaging app by the Inspector General, where he shared sensitive information about military attacks in a group chat, which unknowingly included a journalist. He also shared information in other chats, including his wife and brother.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters in August that Hegseth had made a statement as part of that investigation – one of the final stages in the process.
Don Crustonson, a former chief prosecutor for the Air Force and a lawyer based in Virginia, who often represents a complaint with the Inspector General, questioned the need for Hegseth’s instructions.
“It is based on people that he hangs out with complaints about any type of study or data that indicates that IG takes a long time or the problem with serial complainants,” said Christians. He said, “I don’t know about any data that shows that serial is a crisis of complaints.”
Advocates are afraid of a cool effect on soldiers
Former Air Force Advocate and Military Justice Advocate, Rachel Wanlandham said that he was worried that the changes would have a major cool effect on the soldiers coming forward to report sexual harassment, bullying and racism.
He said that by abolishing anonymous reporting, Hegseth is planning to stop a process that has been proved to bring to light the important issues affecting morale and discipline within the units. “
,survey After the survey, it is found out that service members are afraid of their command chains, and when they are afraid of their own command chain, the problems become unresolved, ”he said.
Despite the establishment of years messages and special response teams, the army has continued to struggle with sexual harassment and violence towards women.
In a recent case, Army SPC. Vanessa guilaneIn 2020, disintegrated remains were discovered after disappearing from Fort Hood in Texas for more than two months. This murder provoked a movement of women speaking about sexual exploitation in the army and how can they report it.
An investigation by the army later found that, among other issues, there was an atmosphere that tolerated sexual harassment and attack, and that the command chain had a significant lack of trust, and therefore reluctant to report derogatory behavior.
Hegseth says racism and sexual harassment will be targeted
In his speech this week, Hegseth estimated criticism of his changes and emphasized the assembled military brass that “of course, a racist since 1948 has been illegal in our formation – the same goes for sexual harassment – both are wrong and illegal.” He said “those types of violations will be brutally implemented.”
While Vanlandingam acknowledged the situation of Hegseth, she said “she is” changing systems that have been shown to help reduce sexual harassment and sexual attacks “and were created in response to extensive systemic racial and sexual discrimination and harassment.
The Memo of Hegseth also said that the same code of military justice – the legal code controlling military personnel – prohibits false statements and violars will be “justified appropriately.”
Both Christians and Vanlandingham stated that in such words people would be almost discouraged by reporting concerns and complaints.
Christians said, “Those who are coming forward are already taking a big risk for their career, and now they are making it worse by targeting their back.”
Vanlandingam said: “It is not that you create confidence in a system that are able to report things that need to be reported completely.”
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Associated press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.