ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611250144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Army Secretary Togo West pledged Friday that the Army ``will go where the evidence takes us'' as he ordered investigations into what senior commanders may have known - and should have known - about sex allegations at Army training sites.
The investigators will try to assess whether the Army's military ``culture'' fosters an atmosphere that condones such conduct, and if changes should be made in the service's approach to sexual harassment, said the service's top civilian leader.
``We can't put our heads in the sand,'' West said. ``I will not give you a statement today that says we are going to go out headhunting. We will go where the evidence takes us.''
West's announcement came as the largest military service struggled to respond to recent charges of sexual harassment and rape at a training base in Aberdeen, Md., and elsewhere. The complaints involve primarily noncommissioned officers and young female trainees under their charge.
The Aberdeen incident touched off thousands of phone calls to a hot line at the base, prompting Army leaders to consider making a hot line a permanent fixture, West said.
At a Pentagon briefing, West announced he has asked for the Army's inspector general to review the role of commanders and said he is creating a nine-member panel to consider changing the service's policies on sexual harassment and its training procedures.
The Army's inspector general is Lt. Gen. Jared L. Bates. A former inspector general, Maj. Gen. Richard Siegfried, is being called back from retirement to lead the panel, which includes both civilians and military officers, West said.
The nine-member panel will report back in five months but will also offer short-term suggestions in the interim, West said.
``I expect both the inspector general and the senior review panel to address the question is there something in our culture that causes these issues to arise?'' he said.
The inspector general is also being asked to see whether commanders didn't act when they should have, or ``didn't know what they should have known,'' West said.
Asked what could come of the investigations, West replied: ``My sense is, I hope, there's no other Aberdeens.''
A big problem in the Army system appears to be that women who were harassed did not report the abuse, fearing that their superiors would not treat their complaints seriously or that they would face retaliation.
West acknowledged that the Army's sexual-harassment statistics may be flawed in other ways. The Army compiles detailed reports on every sexual-harassment complaint filed, but it has no way to collate the information to get a complete picture of the problem.
``We need to push things around to see if we can't aggregate it the way everybody can read it and understand it,'' said West.
Defense Secretary William Perry has directed the services to establish a common data base detailing criminal offenses that include sex crimes, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said this week.
The New York Times and Knight-Ridder/Tribune contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) West. color. KEYWORDS: 2DAby CNB