As my esteemed colleague Frank Gannon mentioned Saturday, Director of The White House Military Office Louis Caldera resigned from his post Friday after the uproar caused by his office’s decision to carry out an Air Force One photo-op above the New York City skyline frightening residents and workers reminded of the September 11 attacks. An internal review was released by the White Counsel’s Office on Friday, first reporting the dispute over Caldera’s knowledge of the mission and second the PAG (Presidential Aircraft Group) Director Air Force Colonel Scott Turner’s decision not to notify the public by marking the mission “for official use only.” According to the review there are fundamental procedural issues that need to be reconciled:
“Neither the [Presidential Aircraft Group] nor any other Air Force component notifies the White House about routine training exercises,” the report said. “There are no clear procedures governing the approval process for the use of PAG aircraft, including Air Force One, for operations other than Presidential support.”
Former Nixon military assistant Jack Brennan — who was interviewed by TNN last week when this story first broke — still contends that the communicative breakdown occured because a senior military official wasn’t running the “military office.” Brennan adds that if Colonel Turner had been under a senior military authority — rather than Caldera — the decision would have come directly from the top and the chain of command would have been entirely integrated so that a operation involving military aircraft — even “routine exercises” — would have never been passed to a lower authority and the director would have been accountable enough to know that it shouldn’t have. For Brennan, Colonel Turner’s mistake is ultimately “greater evidence that a civilian should have never had this authority.”