Critics on Offense Against Defense Secretary Aspin

Is Les Aspin on the way out as President Clinton’s defense secretary?

That question has been fluttering through Washington recently as the White House struggles to recover from setbacks in Somalia and Haiti and as conservatives sharpen their attacks on the Administration as weak on national defense.

Although there is no indication yet that the White House is preparing Aspin’s walking papers, and the secretary’s aides deny that there is any problem, there are signs that all is not well for the 55-year-old former Wisconsin lawmaker:

* Congress, which seems to have soured on the maverick defense secretary, is abuzz with talk that Aspin is likely to be forced out--most likely resigning early next year for “medical” reasons. Aspin has a heart problem, and received a pacemaker last spring.

* For the first time, other senior officials in the Administration have begun to criticize Aspin privately, pointing to him as the weak link in the Clinton national security team. The comments are a clear sign of discord in an Administration that until now has placed a premium on avoiding internecine warfare.

* There are at least some indications that important White House officials have begun questioning Aspin’s value to the Clinton team. Asked whether Aspin is in trouble, a well-placed White House official hesitated before issuing the standard denial.

And insiders say Clinton’s top political trouble-shooters have privately told the President that Aspin is becoming a problem. How Clinton will respond remains to be seen.

“What you have here could wind up being the beginning of the end,” said Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant defense secretary now at the Brookings Institution. “Not immediately, but one more sort of gaffe and he’s gone.”

Aspin’s tenure as defense chief has not been all rocky. During his first 10 months in office, he has engineered a sweeping review of defense policy, expanded combat posts for women and proposed major reforms in the Pentagon’s weapons-procurement process.

He also helped broker a compromise between the White House and Congress over Clinton’s proposal in January to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. And he has moved to crack down on sexual harassment in the military far more strongly than his predecessors.

But Aspin also has come under a barrage of criticism for a variety of perceived missteps, ranging from the handling of the Bosnia crisis to last month’s dispatch of lightly armed combat engineers to Haiti, where their ship turned back after thugs blocked the dock.

The most serious damage has come from last month’s debacle in Somalia, where 18 members of the elite U.S. Ranger force there were killed--and 77 others were wounded--in part because of the Administration’s mismanagement of military and diplomatic efforts in that country.

Only three weeks before, the defense secretary had turned down a request from U.S. military commanders in Mogadishu for dozens of extra tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Experts since have charged that the added armor could have helped prevent some of the casualties.

Although Aspin has complained that he was not told specifically that the armor was needed to protect U.S. troops, internal Pentagon documents quoted later in the Washington Post showed that at least some commanders made clear they were seeking the weapons for that purpose.

A few days later, when lawmakers demanded that the Administration come to Capitol Hill to spell out its policy on Somalia, Aspin enraged and unsettled many lawmakers by failing to provide a coherent explanation of what U.S. troops were doing there.

“He came in and said, ‘Hey, guys, what do you think we ought to do?’ ” said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “That wasn’t what members of Congress wanted to hear at that point.”

Another senior Administration national security official agrees. “He was a complete disaster” in briefing Congress, the official said. “It’s as if he had a knack for making problems worse.”

The lawmakers have been complaining ever since.

Late last month, Rep. Bill Archer (R-Tex.) held a press conference to disclose that he had sent a letter to Clinton calling for Aspin’s resignation. Archer said he had the signatures of 33 other lawmakers who felt the same way.

“Clearly in Mogadishu there was an abject failure on the part of Secretary Aspin to provide for the safety of our troops,” Archer told reporters. “This, to me, is inexcusable, unconscionable and requires a request for his resignation.”

And Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) told the Senate after the Somalia bloodshed that “Secretary Aspin let us down by turning a military decision into a political decision. That was wrong, and he must be removed. He should be fired now or he should resign now.”

The criticism of Aspin, much like the words of praise in his defense, comes from across the political spectrum.

Aspin’s associates insist they are not fazed by the brouhaha, dismissing the continuing rumors of a coming Aspin departure as outdated gossip that has been groundless from the start.

“It’s a mixture of bull and ignorance--a fad cycle,” says a veteran Washington insider who has close ties to Aspin. “There’s only one constituent here, the President, and he’s appreciative of what the secretary is doing. Basically, this story has passed.”

One problem for Aspin is that the dust-up over Somalia follows a spate of mini-flaps over the past few months.

Not all of these problems have been Aspin’s fault: An attempt to fire the chief of naval operations over the Tailhook scandal broke into print before it got to the secretary’s desk. A Marine Corps bid to restrict recruiting of married persons also slipped through the cracks.

But they all occurred on Aspin’s watch, leaving the defense secretary with a reputation for gaffes and misstatements that even many critics concede is out of proportion to reality.

“He seems to have made the transition,” says Sean O’Keefe, who was secretary of the Navy under the George Bush Administration and is sympathetic to Aspin’s problems. “But it’s been a confused, diffused kind of tenure so far.”

That was not what everyone expected when Aspin was tapped for the job. The Wisconsin congressman, a savvy politician and veteran of 22 years in the House, was widely regarded as one of the best prepared candidates Clinton was considering.

But insiders say Aspin has faced two big problems: As a maverick and an irrepressible policy wonk, he finds it difficult to make decisions without thinking aloud in public--a habit that makes him seem indecisive. And his skills are as a congressman, which are far different from those needed in the executive branch.

Aspin is not the only top Administration policy-maker who has been the target of criticism lately. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake all have received their share of brickbats.

But some insiders suggest Aspin appears to be the most vulnerable, partly because Christopher is personally close to Clinton and the other two are too low-profile to be lightning rods for criticism of the Administration’s foreign policy. In addition, Christopher has been more visible than Aspin in courting members of Congress, assiduously answering their telephone calls and testifying before congressional committees.

Aspin also has been plagued by increasingly sour relations between the defense thinkers from academia who make up his top-echelon civilian staff and senior military leaders, many of whom complain that they have not been heeded sufficiently.

Some career military officers privately deride the secretary’s team as “Aspin University”--a factor that has not helped the secretary’s position among conservatives, who often rely heavily on back-channel advice from the uniformed services.

Yet those factors do not necessarily mean Aspin will be fired. Jettisoning his defense secretary has some downsides for the President, analysts point out, including that it would serve to confirm the criticism that the Administration has not performed well in the foreign policy arena.

“Aspin will be the first to leave, but it won’t be right away,” predicted a Capitol Hill strategist who keeps tabs on the situation. “Pushing him out now would just magnify the Administration’s embarrassment and its reputation for weakness under fire.”

Times staff writer John M. Broder contributed to this story.