Bush Firing of Key Army Aide Assailed

House lawmakers said Thursday their former colleague was fired as civilian head of the Army Corps of Engineers because of his honesty in predicting Congress would not allow the administration’s proposed cuts in water project spending.

Mike Parker was just telling the truth, said Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), namely that the Bush administration “purposely low-balled the budget” knowing that Congress, a staunch supporter of Army Corps projects, would restore the money.

Parker, an assistant Army secretary, was fired Wednesday. A week earlier, he told the Senate Budget Committee that proposed cuts could hurt the corps’ efforts and that he expected the final budget approved by Congress would be higher.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer defended Parker’s dismissal. The president thinks “it’s appropriate for staff to support the administration’s policy,” Fleischer said.

White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., in a memo written two days after Parker’s Senate testimony, said Parker, Army Corps chief of engineers Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) had “reached convivial agreement” that the budget was “unacceptable and probably just a cynical ploy.”

President Bush’s plan for fiscal 2003 cuts the corps’ budget by 10% to $4.175 billion, excluding federal retirees’ pensions and benefits. The corps had requested more than $6 billion.

The plan includes a 16% reduction in the construction budget, causing the termination of at least 64 contracts that employ 8,600 people, a House Transportation Committee analysis showed. It would cost $190 million to eliminate these projects, the committee said.