Last November, the Pentagon’s Inspector General presented Congress with a “little-noticed” report on whistleblowing in the US military, revealing that those who come forward with claims of misconduct including sexual harassment and safety problems face a “culture of retaliation” including black marks on their service records, demotion, and suspension of security clearance; the IG also reported that in nearly every case, the officers who retaliated against whistleblowers faced no consequences for their actions.
The report also finds that the vast majority of wrongdoers whose crimes were revealed by whistleblowers did not face consequences for their bad acts, even after these acts were confirmed by investigators.
The IG also found that the military had previously been warned about these deficits and had been given recommendations for reforming its practices, and had consistently ignored these recommendations, despite promises from top officers to act on them.
The story appears in Roll Call, parent company of the political dirty tricksters suspected of sabotaging the FCC’s Net Neutrality process by stealing the identities of millions of Americans in order to submit millions of comments supporting the corporate objectives of the country’s largest telcoms operators.
Ironically, the Pentagon IG is increasingly effective at processing a surging number of complaints of wrongdoing at the Defense Department — about sexual harassment, procurement fraud and other unethical behavior.The office is also speedily processing more and more allegations of retaliation against those who blow the whistle. But it’s had little impact on the culture of retribution within the Defense Department.
The acting Pentagon inspector general, Glenn Fine, not only reports to Congress and the public the results of his office’s investigations on whistleblower reprisals and other matters, he also regularly talks to the military services, defense agencies, major commands and the services’ IGs to follow up once retaliation investigations are completed, said Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for Fine, in a statement.
Pentagon harbors culture of revenge against whistleblowers [John M. Donnelly/Roll Call]