"Casualties of the Bush Administration....the casualties of the Bush
administration are legion. The numbers of government careers wrecked,
disrupted, adversely affected, or tossed into turmoil as a result of
this administration's wars, budgets, policies, and programs is
impossible to determine. Although every administration leaves bodies
strewn in its wake, none in recent memory has come close to the Bush
administration in producing so many public statements of resignation,
dissatisfaction, or anger over treatment or policies. The
aforementioned list of casualties includes among the best known of
those who have resigned or left the administration under pressure
(although not necessarily those who have suffered most from their
acts). Perhaps no one knows exactly how many government workers, at
all levels, have fallen in the face of the Bush administration. Those
mentioned above are just a few of the highest profile members of this
as yet uncounted legion, just a few of the names we know."


Actual quotes by the individuals listed are included and are worth
reading to get a sense of what has been happening behind the scenes in
 CICBush43's administration.  Comments about the invasion of Iraq and
its adverse impact on the war on terror are particularly enlightening.
 This is the first of what now amounts to a three part, but open ended
series.

David Bier

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817

Tomgram: Nick Turse, Casualties of the Bush Administration

As the American toll in Iraq climbs toward 2,000 dead and 15,000
wounded, and the horror of those shortened or constricted lives
continues to sink deep into American communities, various memorials to
the fallen -- American soldiers, journalists, contractors, and
sometimes Iraqis as well -- have sprung to life. Arrays of combat
boots; labyrinths and candlelit displays for the dead; actual walls
and "walls" on-line; newspaper "walls" as well as walls of words; not
to speak of websites with ever-growing military and civilian casualty
counts. The American Friends Service Committee, for example, has an
exhibit, "Eyes Wide Open," that has long traveled the country,
featuring "a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty, a
field of shoes and a Wall of Remembrance to memorialize the Iraqis
killed in the conflict, and a multimedia display exploring the
history, cost and consequences of the war." The exhibit began with
just over 500 combat boots and now features almost 2,000.

Informal memorials and citizens' efforts are part of the growing
movement against George Bush's Iraq War. Walls of every sort are being
built. In Asheville, North Carolina, for example, as part of a "peace
park," townspeople have been building their own Iraq Wall with each
"sponsored" stone representing one American who has died there.
Planned also is "a memorial to the Iraqi dead, presently estimated at
over 100,000." Sometimes these projects are very personal, even
individual, ranging from spontaneous displays of candles on beaches
to, in the case of one reader who wrote in to Tomdispatch, a
garden/labyrinth of the American dead built in her own backyard.

These "walls," each with its own character, all influenced by
architect Maya Lin's Vietnam Wall in Washington (which movingly
reflected a grim American disaster and defeat), are signs of a growing
sense that this war is a horror and a dishonor to which the honorable
have fallen (a sense backed strongly by the latest opinion polls).

But the particular dishonor this administration has brought down on
our country calls out for other "walls" as well. Perhaps, for
instance, we need some negative walls built, stone by miserable stone,
to cronyism, corruption, and incompetence. In the next few weeks (as
in the last few), we seem certain to see the dishonor of this
administration spread around widely. In addition to the Iraq
situation, ever devolving into further chaos and anarchy, there was,
of course, the recent catastrophic failure of FEMA; then the squalid
fall of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as "the Hammer" got hammered.
There is the ongoing fiasco of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's
sale of family stock in a "blind trust" just before its price
plummeted. He's now under investigation for possible violations of
insider trading laws and the SEC has just subpoenaed his "personal
records and documents." Soon, it seems, there will be dishonor to go
around as the expected Fitzgerald indictments in the Plame case come
down. (Caught in the crosshairs of Plame case scandal is the New York
Times, a paper tied in knots and at war with itself, which managed to
loose both former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's famed op-ed on Saddam's
nonexistent Niger yellowcake and Judith Miller, the near-neocon
journalist whose reporting helped bring us to the edge of the Iraq
War. To catch up on this aspect of things, make sure to read Jay
Rosen's remarkable recent columns at his PressThink blog.)

With all this in mind, it seems a worthwhile endeavor to remind the
world of those who opposed an administration whose actions, in the
end, are likely to make the no-bid Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s
look like a tempest in... well, a teapot in the no-bid Halliburton
era. Bernard Weiner of the Crisis Papers blog 
(http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-w/plamegate.htm) has already
written a kind of verbal "wall" to honor those -- mainly journalists
and bloggers of every sort -- who fought to hold the line against this
administration in media bad times and are here to watch the process of
rollback happen. At Tomdispatch, we had another idea. Below Nick Turse
has created the beginnings of a "wall" to quite a different legion of
the fallen; in this case, the governmental casualties of Bush
administration follies, those men and women who were honorable or
steadfast enough in their government duties that they found themselves
with little alternative but to resign in protest, quit, or simply be
pushed off the cliff by cronies of this administration. Here are the
first 42 names of those we thought might be put on such a wall (and
brief descriptions of their fates). Tom

    The Fallen Legion
    Casualties of the Bush Administration
    By Nick Turse

    In late August 2005, after twenty years of service in the field of
military procurement, Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official
at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government
contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, was demoted. For years,
Greenhouse received stellar evaluations from superiors 
(http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050906/OPINION02/50906027/-1/OPINION)
-- until she raised objections about secret, no-bid contracts awarded
to Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) -- a subsidiary of Halliburton, the
mega-corporation Vice President Dick Cheney once presided over. After
telling congress that one Halliburton deal was 
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/09/06/truth_trumped/)
"the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during
the course of my professional career," she was reassigned from "the
elite Senior Executive Service... 
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/29/news/army.php) to a lesser job
in the civil works division of the corps."


    When Greenhouse was busted down, she became just another of the
casualties of the Bush administration -- not the countless (or rather
uncounted) Iraqis, or the ever-growing list of American troops,
killed, maimed, or mutilated in the administration's war of
convenience-- but the seemingly endless and ever-growing list of
beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who
quit their posts in protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced
out, demoted, or driven to retire by Bush administration
strong-arming. Often, this has been due to revulsion at the
President's policies -- from the invasion of Iraq and negotiations
with North Korea to the flattening of FEMA and the slashing of
environmental standards -- which these women and men found to be
beyond the pale.

    Since almost the day he assumed power, George W. Bush has left a
trail of broken careers in his wake. Below is a listing of but a
handful of the most familiar names on the rolls of the fallen:

    Richard Clarke: Perhaps the most well-known of the Bush
administration's casualties, Clarke spent thirty years
(http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/) in the
government, serving under every president from Ronald Reagan on. He
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3559087.stm) was the
second-ranking intelligence officer in the State Department under
Reagan and then served in the administration of George H.W. Bush.
Under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he held the position
of the president's chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security
Council -- a Cabinet-level post. Clarke became disillusioned with the 
(http://slate.msn.com/id/2097685/) "terrible job" of fighting
terrorism exhibited by the second president Bush -- namely, ignoring
evidence of an impending al-Qaeda attack and putting the pressure on
to produce a non-existent link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
(His memo explaining that there was no connection, said Clarke, 
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-20-clarke_x.htm) "got
bounced and sent back saying, `Wrong answer. Do it again.'") After
9/11, Clarke asked for a transfer from his job to a National Security
Council office concerned with cyber-terrorism. (The administration
later claimed it was a demotion). 

Quit, January 2003.


    Paul O'Neill: A top official at the Office of Management and
Budget under Presidents Nixon and Ford (and later chairman of
aluminum-giant Alcoa), O'Neill served nearly two years in George W.
Bush's cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury before being asked to
resign after opposing the president's tax cuts. He, like Clarke,
recalled Bush's Iraq fixation. "From the very beginning, 
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml)
there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that
he needed to go," said O'Neill, a permanent member of the National
Security Council. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was
the tone of it. The president saying `Go find me a way to do this.'" 

Fired, December 6, 2002.


    Flynt Leverett, Ben Miller and Hillary Mann: A Senior Director for
Middle East Affairs on President Bush's National Security Council
(NSC), a CIA staffer and Iraq expert with the NSC, and a foreign
service officer on detail to the NSC as the Director for Iran and
Persian Gulf Affairs, respectively, they were all reportedly forced 
(http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=268811&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=268811)
out by Elliott Abrams, Bush's NSC Advisor on Middle East Affairs, when
they disagreed with policy toward Israel. Said Leverett, 
(http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/02/1516227) "There
was a decision made… basically to renege on the commitments we had
made to various European and Arab partners of the United States. I
personally disagreed with that decision." He also noted, 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28976-2004Mar27) "[Richard]
Clarke's critique of administration decision-making and how it did not
balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus
what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money… We took the
people out [of Afghanistan in 2002 to begin preparing for the war in
Iraq] who could have caught" al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and
Ayman Zawahiri. According to Josef Bodansky, the director of the
Congressional Task Force on Terror and Unconventional Warfare, Abrams
"led Miller to an open window and told him to jump." 
(http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/2003/February/Feb_26.htm) He also
stated that Mann and Leverett had been told to leave. 

Resigned/Fired, 2003.


    Larry Lindsey: A "top economic adviser" to Bush who was ousted
(http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1217/p08s03-comv.html) when he revealed
to a newspaper that a war with Iraq could cost $200 billion. 

Fired, December 2002.


    Ann Wright: A career diplomat in the Foreign Service and a colonel
in the Army Reserves resigned on the day the U.S. launched the Iraq
War. In her letter of resignation, 
(http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/032103wright.htm) Wright told
then-Secretary of State Colin Powell: "I believe the Administration's
policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place. I
feel obligated morally and professionally to set out my very deep and
firm concerns on these policies and to resign from government service
as I cannot defend or implement them." Resigned, March 19, 2003.

    John Brady Kiesling: A career diplomat who served four presidents
over a twenty year span, he tendered his letter of resignation 
(http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=1&num=61)
from his post as Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Athens,
Greece on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. He wrote:

        "…until this Administration it had been possible to believe
that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding
the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no
longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not
only with American values but also with American interests. Our
fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the
international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of
both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have
begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international
relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring
instability and danger, not security."

    Resigned, February 27, 2003.


    John Brown: After nearly 25-years, this veteran of the Foreign
Service, who served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev and Belgrade,
resigned from his post. In his letter of resignation, 
(http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/031203brown.htm) he wrote: "I cannot
in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq.
The president has failed to: explain clearly why our brave men and
women in uniform should be ready to sacrifice their lives in a war on
Iraq at this time; to lay out the full ramifications of this war,
including the extent of innocent civilian casualties; to specify the
economic costs of the war for the ordinary Americans; to clarify how
the war would help rid the world of terror; [and] to take
international public opinion against the war into serious consideration." 

Resigned, March 10, 2003.


    Rand Beers: When Beers, the National Security Council's senior
director for combating terrorism, resigned he declined to comment, but
one former intelligence official noted, "Hardly a surprise. 
(http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030319-040543-3049r) We have
sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at
all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror
is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our
military and intel[ligence] resources and the relationships with our
allies." Beers later admitted, "The administration 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer)
wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism.
They're making us less secure, not more secure… As an insider, I saw
the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched,
the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out." 

Resigned, March 2003.


    Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni served
from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United States Central
Command in the Middle East. The retired Marine Corps general was then
called back to service by the Bush administration to assume one of the
highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East (from
November 2002 to March 2003), but his disagreement with Bush's plans
to go to war and public comments that foretold of a prolonged 
(http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_07/001753.php)
and problematical aftermath to such a war led to his ouster. "In the 
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml)
lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum,
true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying,
incompetence and corruption," said Zinni. 

Failed to be reappointed, March 2003.


    Eric Shinseki: After General Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff,
told Congress that the occupation of Iraq could require "several
hundred thousand troops," he was derided by Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Then, wrote the Houston Chronicle, 
(http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/enron/1884671)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "took the unusual step of
announcing that Gen. Eric Shinseki would be leaving when his term as
Army chief of staff end[ed]." 

Retired, June 2003.


    Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who
served in the Department of Defense's Near East and South Asia (NESA)
Bureau in the year before the invasion of Iraq, she wrote in her
letter of resignation:
(http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0805-08.htm)

        "…[W]hile working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the
office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South
Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed
the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made… What
I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and
discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of
`intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the
post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false
steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of
the Secretary of Defense." 

    Retired, July 2003.


    Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army colonel and a
28-year veteran of the military, the State Department, and the
National Security Council, who served as the State Department's senior
expert on North Korea and as the special envoy for negotiations with
that country, resigned (according to the Los Angeles Times) 
(http://www.catoinstitute.org/dispatch/09-10-03d.html) because the
"administration's refusal to engage directly with the country made it
almost impossible to stop Pyongyang from going ahead with its plans to
build, test and deploy nuclear weapons." 

Resigned, August 2003.


    Major (then Captain) John Carr and Major Robert Preston: Air Force
(http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112285649242201078-tjc0gmeHIQpFuNcSjYXqHSQ4Gpk_20050831.html?mod=blogs)
prosecutors, they quit their posts in 2004 rather than take part in
trials under the military commission system President Bush created in
2001 which they considered "rigged against alleged terrorists held at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." 

Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.


    Captain Carrie Wolf: A U.S. Air Force officer, 
(http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1428749.htm) she also
asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions due to concerns that
the Bush-created commissions for trying prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
were unjust. 

Requested and granted reassignment, 2004.


    Colonel Douglas Macgregor: He retired from the U.S. Army and stated: 
(http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=THE+AMERICAS%3A+Maverick+colonel+blames+US+army%27s+%27sycophantic%27+culture+and+heavy-handedness+for+failures+in+Iraq&expire=&urlID=10690622&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ft.com%2Fs03%2Fsearch%2Farticle.html%3Fid%3D040609000149&partnerID=1741)
"I love the army and I was sorry to leave it. But I saw no possibility
of fundamentally positive reform and reorgani[z]ation of the force for
the current strategic environment or the future… It's a very
sycophantic culture. The biggest problem we have inside the…
Department of Defense at the senior level, but also within the officer
corps -- is that there are no arguments. Arguments are [seen as] a
sign of dissent. Dissent equates to disloyalty." 

Retired, June 2004.


    Paul Redmond: After a long career at the CIA, Redmond became the
Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis at the Department of
Homeland Security. When, according to Notra Trulock 
(http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A303_0_2_0_C/) of Accuracy in Media,
he reported, at a congressional hearing in June 2003, "that he didn't
have enough analysts to do the job… [and] his office still lacked the
secure communications capability to receive classified reports from
the intelligence community… [t]hat kind of candor was not appreciated
by his bosses and, consequently, he had to go." 

Resigned, June 2003.


    John W. Carlin: According to the Washington Post, Carlin, the 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13913-2004Jul25.html)
"Archivist of the United States was pushed by the White House… to
submit his resignation without being given any reason, Senate
Democrats disclosed… at a hearing to consider President Bush's
nomination of his successor." "I asked why, and there was no reason
given," said Carlin, but the Post reported that some had "suggested
Bush may have wanted a new archivist to help keep his or his father's
sensitive presidential records under wraps." Although he had stated
his wish to serve until the end of his 10-year term, and 65th birthday
in 2005, Carlin surrendered to Bush administration pressure. 

Resigned, December 19, 2003.


    Susan Wood and Frank Davidoff: Wood was the Food and Drug
Administration's Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health and
Director of the Office of Women's Health; Davidoff was the editor
emeritus of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine and an internal
medicine specialist on the FDA's Nonprescription Drugs Advisory
Committee. Wood resigned in protest over the FDA's decision to delay
yet again, due to pressure from the Bush administration, a final
ruling on whether the "morning-after pill" should be made more easily
accessible -- despite a 23-4 vote, back in December 2003, by a panel
of experts to recommend non-prescription sale of the contraceptive,
called Plan B. In an email to colleagues, Wood, the top FDA official
in charge of women's health issues, wrote, "I can no longer serve 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083101271.html)
as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and
recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been
overruled." Days later, Davidoff quit over the same issue and wrote in
his resignation letter, "I can no longer associate myself 
(http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/10/06/contraceptive.resignation.reut/)
with an organization that is capable of making such an important
decision so flagrantly on the basis of political influence, rather
than the scientific and clinical evidence." 

Wood: Resigned, August 31, 2005. 
Davidoff: Resigned, September, 2005.


    Thomas E. Novotny: A deputy assistant secretary at the Department
of Health and Human Services and the chief official 
(http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines01/0802-01.htm)
working on an international treaty to reduce cigarette smoking around
the world, Novotny "stepped down," claimed Bush administration
officials, "for personal reasons unrelated to the negotiations"; but
the Washington Post reported that "three people who ha[d] spoken with
Novotny… said he had privately expressed frustration over the
administration's decision to soften the U.S. positions on key issues,
including restrictions on secondhand smoke and the advertising and
marketing of cigarettes." 

Resigned, August 1, 2001.


    Joanne Wilson: The commissioner of the Department of Education's
Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), she quit, according to
the Washington Post, 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401066.html)
"in protest of what she said were the administration's largely
unnoticed efforts to gut the office's funding and staffing" and
attempts to dismantle programs "critical to helping the blind, deaf
and otherwise disabled find jobs." On February 7, 2005 the Bush
administration announced that it would close all RSA regional offices
and cut personnel in half. 

Quit, February 8, 2005.


    James Zahn: According to an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in
the Nation magazine, Zahn, a "nationally respected microbiologist with
the Agriculture Department's research service," stated 
(http://www.alternet.org/story/17949/) that "his supervisor at the
USDA, under pressure from the hog industry, had ordered him not to
publish his study," which "identified bacteria that can make people
sick -- and that are resistant to antibiotics -- in the air
surrounding industrial-style hog farms"; and that "he had been forced
to cancel more than a dozen public appearances at local planning
boards and county health commissions seeking information about health
impacts of industry mega-farms." As a result, "Zahn resigned from the
government in disgust." 

Resigned, May 2002.


    Tony Oppegard and Jack Spadaro: Oppegard and Spadaro were members
of a "team of federal geodesic engineers 
(http://www.alternet.org/story/17949/) selected to investigate the
collapse of barriers that held back a coal slurry pond in Kentucky
containing toxic wastes from mountaintop strip-mining." According to
the Environmental Protection Agency, this had been "the greatest
environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United
States." Oppegard, who headed the team, "was fired on the day Bush was
inaugurated… All eight members of the team except Spadaro signed off
on a whitewashed investigation report. Spadaro, like the others, was
harassed but flat-out refused to sign. In April of 2001 Spadaro 

resigned from the team and filed a complaint with the Inspector
General of the Labor Department… he was placed on administrative
leave--a prelude to getting fired." Two months before his 28th
anniversary as a federal employee, and after years of harassment due
to his stance, Spadaro resigned. 
(http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.bingham.html)
"I'm just very tired of fighting," he said. "I've been fighting this
administration since early 2001. I want a little peace for a while." 

Oppegrad: Fired, January 20, 2001. 
Spaddaro: Resigned, October 1, 2003.


    Teresa Chambers: After speaking with reporters and congressional
staffers about budget problems in her organization, the U.S. Park
Police Chief was placed on administrative leave. Then, according to
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/10/park.police.chief/index.html) CNN,
just "two and half hours after her attorneys filed a demand for
immediate reinstatement through the Merit Systems Protection Board, an
independent agency that ensures federal employees are protected from
management abuses," Chambers was fired. "The American people should be
afraid of this kind of silencing of professionals in any field," said
Chambers. "We should be very concerned as American citizens that
people who are experts in their field either can't speak up, or, as
we're seeing now in the parks service, won't speak up." 

Fired, July 2004.

    Martha Hahn: The state director for the Bureau of Land Management,
"responsible for 12 million acres in Idaho, almost one-quarter of the
state" for seven years, Hahn found her authority drastically curtailed
after the Bush administration took office. She watched as the
administration blocked public comment on mining initiatives and opened
up previously protected areas to environmental degradation. After she
locked horns with cattle interests over grazing rights, she received a
letter stating she was being transferred from her beloved Rocky
Mountain West to "a previously nonexistent job in New York City." 
(http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0603-01.htm) "It's been a
shock," she said. "I'm going through mental anguish right now. I felt
like I was at the prime of my career." Hahn 
(http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript131_full.html) was told
to accept the involuntary reassignment or resign. 

Resigned, March 6, 2002.


    Andrew Eller: Eller "spent many of his 17 years with the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service protecting the [Florida] panther. But when his
research didn't jibe with a huge airport project slated for the cat's
habitat -- and Eller refused to play along--he was given the boot,"
wrote the Tucson Weekly. 
(http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/currents/Content?oid=oid:66512) "I
was fired three days after President Bush was re-elected," said Eller.
"It was obviously reprisal for holding different views than [U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service] management on whether or not the panther was in
jeopardy, and pointing out that they were using flawed science to
support their view." 

Fired, November 2004.


    Mike Dombeck: The chief of the Forest Service resigned after a
23-year government career. In his resignation letter, the
pro-conservation Dombeck stated, 
(http://www.alternet.org/story/17309/) "It was made clear in no
uncertain terms that the [Bush] administration wants to take the
Forest Service in another direction ...." 

Resigned, March 27, 2001.


    James Furnish: A political conservative, 
(http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript131_full.html)
evangelical Christian, and Republican who voted for George W. Bush in
2000 as well as the former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service
(who spent 30 years, across 8 presidential administrations working for
that agency), Furnish resigned in 2002 due to policy differences with
the Bush administration. "I just viewed [the administration's] actions
as being regressive," said Furnish. In acting according to his
conscience, instead of waiting 
(http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0603-01.htm) a year longer to
maximize retirement benefits, Furnish lost out on about $10,000 a year
for the rest of his life. 

Resigned, 2002.


    Mike Parker: In early 2002, Parker, the director of the Army Corps
of Engineers testified before Congress that Bush-mandated budget cuts
would have a "negative impact" on the Corps. He also admitted to
holding no "warm and fuzzy" feelings toward the Bush administration.
"Soon after," reported the Christian Science Monitor, 
(http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1217/p08s03-comv.html) "he was given 30
minutes to resign or be fired." In the wake of the devastation caused
by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Parker's clashes with Mitch Daniels,
former director of the Office of Management and Budget, can be seen as
prophetic. Parker remembered one such incident in which he brought
Daniels, the Bush administration's budget guru, a piece of steel from
a Mississippi canal lock that "was completely corroded and falling
apart because of a lack of funding," and said, 
(http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0905/090105jv1.htm) "Mitch, it
doesn't matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down
because it disintegrates -- either way it's the same effect, and if we
let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame." He recalled of the
incident, "It made no impact on him whatsoever." 

Resigned, March 6, 2002.


    Sylvia K. Lowrance: A top Environmental Protection Agency official
who served the agency for over 20 years, including as Assistant
Administrator of its Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
for the first 18 months of the Bush administration, Lowrance retired,
stating, "We will see more resignations in the future as the
administration fails to enforce environmental laws." she said, 
(http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8202/8202notw6.html) "This
Administration has pulled cases and put investigations on ice. They
sent every signal they can to staff to back off." 

Retired, August 2002.


    Bruce Boler: An EPA scientist who resigned from his post because, 
(http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2003/11/12/blinded/index.html) he
said, "Wetlands are often referred to as nature's kidneys. Most
self-respecting scientists will tell you that, and yet [private]
developers and officials [at the Army Corps of Engineers] wanted me to
support their position that wetlands are, literally, a pollution source." 

Resigned, October 23, 2003.


    Eric Schaeffer: After twelve years of service, including the last
five as Director of the Office of Regulatory Enforcement, at the
Environmental Protection Agency, Schaeffer submitted a letter of
resignation (http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2002/03/01/) over the Bush
administration's non-enforcement of the Clean Air Act. He later
explained:
(http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0207.schaeffer.html)

        "In a matter of weeks, the Bush administration was able to
undo the environmental progress we had worked years to secure.
Millions of tons of unnecessary pollution continue to pour from these
power plants each year as a result. Adding insult to injury, the White
House sought to slash the EPA's enforcement budget, making it harder
for us to pursue cases we'd already launched against other polluters
that had run afoul of the law, from auto manufacturers to refineries,
large industrial hog feedlots, and paper companies. It became clear
that Bush had little regard for the environment--and even less for
enforcing the laws that protect it. So last spring, after 12 years at
the agency, I resigned, stating my reasons in a very public letter to
Administrator [Christine Todd] Whitman."

    Resigned, February 27, 2002.


    Bruce Buckheit: A 30-year veteran of government service, Buckheit
retired in frustration over Bush administration efforts to weaken
environmental regulations. When asked by NBC reporter Stone Phillips,
(http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4759864/) "What's the biggest enforcement
challenge right now when it comes to air pollution?," the former
Senior Counsel with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S.
Department of Justice, and then Director of EPA's Air Enforcement
Division, was unequivocal: "The Bush Administration." He went on to
note that "this administration has decided to put the economic
interests of the coal fired power plants ahead of the public interests
in reducing air pollution." 

Resigned, November 2003.


    Rich Biondi: A 32-year EPA employee, Biondi retired from his post
as Associate Director of the Air Enforcement Division of the
Environmental Protection Agency. He stated, 
(http://www.governmentexecutive.com/features/0504-15/0504-15s2.htm)
"We weren't given the latitude we had been, and the Bush
administration was interfering more and more with the ability to get
the job done. There were indications things were going to be reviewed
a lot more carefully, and we needed a lot more justification to bring
lawsuits." 

Retired, December 2004.


    Martin E. Sullivan, Richard S. Lanier and Gary Vikan: Three
members of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee, they
all resigned from their posts to protest the looting of Baghdad's
National Museum of Antiquities. In his letter of resignation, 
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/04/17/national1615EDT0635.DTL)
Sullivan, the Committee's chairman, wrote, "The tragedy was not
prevented, due to our nation's inaction," while Lanier castigated "the
administration's total lack of sensitivity and forethought regarding
the Iraq invasion and the loss of cultural treasures." 

Resigned, April 14, 2003.


    In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, eyes began to focus on the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and the political appointees
running it. What had happened to the professionals who once staffed
FEMA? In 2004, Pleasant Mann, a 17-year FEMA veteran who heads the
agency's government employee union told Indyweek:
(http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html)

        "Since last year, so many people have left who had developed
most of our basic programs. A lot of the institutional knowledge is
gone. Everyone who was able to retire has left, and then a lot of
people have moved to other agencies."

    Disillusionment with the current state of affairs at FEMA was
cited as the major cause for the mass defections. In fact, a February
2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found
that 80% of a sample of remaining employees said FEMA had become "a
poorer agency" since being shifted into the Bush-created Department of
Homeland Security. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/homeland/) What
happened to FEMA has happened, in ways large and small, to many other
federal agencies. In an article by Amanda Griscom in Grist magazine,
(http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2003/11/12/blinded/) Jeff Ruch, the
executive director of Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, made reference to the "unusually high" rate of
replacement of scientists in government agencies during the Bush
administration. "If the scientist gives the inconvenient answer they
commit career suicide," he said.

    However defined, the casualties of the Bush administration are
legion. The numbers of government careers wrecked, disrupted,
adversely affected, or tossed into turmoil as a result of this
administration's wars, budgets, policies, and programs is impossible
to determine. Although every administration leaves bodies strewn in
its wake, none in recent memory has come close to the Bush
administration in producing so many public statements of resignation,
dissatisfaction, or anger over treatment or policies. The
aforementioned list of casualties includes among the best known of
those who have resigned or left the administration under pressure
(although not necessarily those who have suffered most from their
acts). Perhaps no one knows exactly how many government workers, at
all levels, have fallen in the face of the Bush administration. Those
mentioned above are just a few of the highest profile members of this
as yet uncounted legion, just a few of the names we know.

    [NOTE: If you know of others, or are one of the "fallen legion"
yourself, please send the information (and whatever supporting
material you would care to supply) to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the subject heading: "fallen legion" to add another name to the
"wall." This is a subject TomDispatch would like to return to in the
future.]

    [Special thanks to Rebecca Solnit for providing the idea for this
piece, and so "commissioning" it.]

    Nick Turse works in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia
University and as the Associate Editor and Research Director at
TomDispatch.com. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, the San
Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice, and regularly for Tomdispatch
on the military-corporate complex, the homeland security state, and
various other topics. 





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