Top General in Air Force Seeks to Retire Year Early

Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman asked Monday to retire a year early, apparently to get out of the chain of command before Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decides if Air Force officers should be punished for security breaches that led to the deaths of 19 service personnel in Saudi Arabia last year.

Although Fogleman began his four-year term as the Air Force’s highest-ranking officer by stressing accountability for command lapses that led to disastrous accidents, he told associates recently that he opposes any punishment for the Saudi Arabia bombing because he believes officers there did all they could have been expected to do.

Cohen is expected to announce later this week if he will hold one or more Air Force officers responsible for failing to protect the Khobar Towers in Dhahran from the truck bomb that shattered the facility a little more than a year ago.

Air Force officials said Fogleman sent a handwritten note to Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall asking to be relieved of his post, which includes a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as soon as possible but no later than Sept. 1.

The officials said the looming report on the Khobar Towers bombing was the primary reason for Fogleman’s decision, although, they said, there were other reasons, which they declined to discuss.

Widnall has not replied to Fogleman’s request, but Cohen issued a written statement that referred in the past tense to the career of the flamboyant former fighter pilot.

“I respect Gen. Fogleman’s personal decision to retire to pursue new opportunities after his service to the Air Force and to the nation,” Cohen said.

Fogleman becomes the first Air Force chief of staff to leave office voluntarily before the end of his term.

In 1995, Fogleman grounded five officers and imposed administrative penalties on others after two F-15 warplanes patrolling the “no-fly zone” over Iraq shot down two Army Blackhawk helicopters flying a diplomatic mission, killing 26 people. He also toughened the service’s performance reports for officers and enlisted personnel.

For a time, he was known as the “accountability general.”

But he has made no secret of his opposition to fixing blame for the Dhahran blast.

A Pentagon task force concluded last September that Air Force commanders “did not take all measures possible to protect the forces at Khobar Towers.”

The task force, headed by retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing, recommended punitive action against those responsible but left it to Cohen to determine who was at fault and what the punishment should be.

In January, the Air Force delayed the promotion to major general of Brig. Gen. Terryl Schwalier, who had overall command of Air Force operations in Saudi Arabia, pending final action in the controversy.

Schwalier’s second star had already been announced and confirmed by the Senate before the promotion was frozen.

Fogleman, a 1963 graduate of the Air Force Academy, is a highly decorated pilot who flew 315 combat missions in Vietnam. He always seemed more at home in the cockpit of a fighter jet than in a Pentagon swivel chair.

Earlier this year, Fogleman created a furor when he told a congressional committee that the Air Force’s first woman B-52 pilot, 1st Lt. Kelly Flynn, deserved to be punished for lying to her commander.

His comments, coming while Flynn was awaiting court-martial on charges of adultery, insubordination and filing a false statement, complicated the Air Force’s effort to settle the case without turning it into a public relations nightmare.

“This is an issue about an officer entrusted to fly nuclear weapons who lied,” Fogleman told a Senate panel. “That’s what this is about.”

Flynn’s attorney accused Fogleman of improper “command influence” on the trial. Flynn eventually was allowed to leave the service with a general discharge.