Pentagon Probe Clears McChrystal

The New York Times reports:

An inquiry by the Defense Department inspector general into a magazine profile that resulted in the abrupt, forced retirement of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has cleared the general, his military aides and civilian advisers of all wrongdoing.

Pentagon investigators said they were unable to confirm the events as reported in the June 2010 article in Rolling Stone, and the inquiry’s final review challenged the accuracy of the profile of General McChrystal, who was the top commander in Afghanistan.

The article, headlined “The Runaway General,” quoted people identified as senior aides to the general making disparaging statements about members of President Obama’s national security team.

The profile prompted a furious debate about whether the commander’s staff had used insubordinate language in discussing the nation’s civilian leadership, and whether General McChrystal had tolerated or even fostered such a climate of disrespect on his team.

One aide was quoted referring to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. using the phrase “bite me.” Gen. James L. Jones, then the national security adviser, was labeled a “clown” by one aide, according to the article, and General McChrystal was described as reacting with disdain upon receiving an e-mail from the late Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The article did not directly quote General McChrystal as saying anything overtly insubordinate.

The reporter who wrote the profile, Michael Hastings, and his editors have repeatedly defended the article’s accuracy. Eric Bates, the executive editor of Rolling Stone, said on Monday that he had not seen the Pentagon’s final inquiry but that the magazine stood by the article as factually correct. “It’s accurate in every detail,” Mr. Bates said.

The inquiry, which the Defense Department’s top investigative body began last fall, disputed key incidents or comments as reported in the article.

“Not all of the events at issue occurred as reported in the article,” the inspector general’s review stated. “In some instances, we found no witness who acknowledged making or hearing the comments as reported. In other instances, we confirmed that the general substance of an incident at issue occurred, but not in the exact context described in the article.”

There are significant gaps between what was reported by Rolling Stone and what was found by the inspector general, but for the military the inspector general’s findings close the case on an episode that ended General McChrystal’s career and threatened to rupture relations between the nation’s civilian leadership and the general officer corps.

After the profile was published, General McChrystal was recalled by the president to Washington, where the general accepted responsibility for all actions by his staff and resigned. The general is now teaching at Yale and giving lectures.

The White House and General McChrystal have taken steps recently to make amends and illustrate a public healing of wounds in the civilian-military relationship.

While the Defense Department inspector general’s report was only made public under a Freedom of Information Act request on Monday, it was completed earlier, on April 8. Four days later, on April 12, the White House announced that General McChrystal was invited back to public service to help oversee a high-profile administration initiative in support of military families.