Walter Reed Hearing to Put Spotlight on Kiley's Leadership

Carolyn Bulliner, a retired colonel who has known Kiley since 1993, said he is a strong leader who has always thought the soldiers in his care were the most important aspect of his job. Bulliner, who now works down the hall from Kiley in the Army Health Facility Planning Agency, also said he is a dedicated family man, devoted to his three children. Two have followed Kiley into military service.

"All I can say is that he absolutely worked his best to ensure the right things were done for his soldiers," said Bulliner, who was director of nursing at Landstuhl. "He trusted and relied on us as his staff to do what we were supposed to do. . . . He got involved when he needed to get involved."

Retired Lt. Gen. Ronald R. Blanck, who commanded Walter Reed from 1992 to 1996 and then served as the Army's surgeon general until 2000, said he always found Kiley on top of things. In conversations with Kiley over the past few years, Blanck noticed that he was particularly interested in front-line care for the wounded and appeared to delegate responsibility when the wounded returned to the United States.

"I don't think he saw himself as someone who should micromanage," Blanck said, adding that he thinks Kiley and Weightman were weighed down by the ballooning casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's just tragic all around. The problems could have easily been addressed by people paying attention. They were overwhelmed by the number of casualties and they unfortunately let that kind of thing slip."

Kiley's comments about Walter Reed are not the first time he has played down allegations of concerns with the Army medical community. In 2005, when Kiley's office reviewed detainee medical operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, he said that no systemic problems were found but did not mention that his office found serious flaws in detainee health care overseas, and that it had identified dozens of abuse cases.

"The majority of medical personnel interviewed did not observe any abuse, and with few exceptions, those medical personnel who did observe suspected abuse reported it," Kiley said at a Pentagon news conference in July 2005. "The assessment results demonstrate that the nation can be proud of our military medical professionals."

The report, released the next day, showed that there were major gaps in detainee care and that there was little official guidance on how to treat detainees. Kiley also said he supported using psychiatrists and physicians on Behavioral Science Consultation Teams that were using medical information from detainees to guide military intelligence interrogations -- against the recommendations of a two-star general who led the assessment.

Leonard S. Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, said that Kiley was not necessarily responsible for coming up with tactics that cross ethical boundaries, but that he defended them. "He did not oppose the use of physicians in military interrogations," Rubenstein said. "It's an invitation to abuse, because the involvement of physicians tends to aggravate the situation."

Kiley, as a three-star general, has gone as high as he can go within the Army's medical hierarchy, and most surgeon generals retire at the end of their four-year terms. Should Kiley weather this storm, he could hold his position until September 2008.

Staff writer Steve Vogel contributed to this report.