Robert Patterson - Dereliction of Duty: Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised Americas National Security

Copyright 2003 by Robert B. Patterson, Jr.

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To my wife and best friend, Nichole, who took a chance on me, endured the White House years with me, and loved me and built a home in spite of my many days away from her. For my beautiful children, Kylie and Tanner, who complete Nichole and me so perfectly. And to my parents, who have supported me and my family throughout the years.

BY A L S ANTOLI

L IEUTENANT C OLONEL R OBERT Buzz Patterson is among the handful of United States military officers with the unique distinction of having served at the side of the president, carrying the suitcase containing the nations nuclear launch codes, also called the nuclear button. In Dereliction of Duty, he offers an invaluable eyewitness account of the inner workings of the White House with respect to national security during the pivotal years of the co-presidency of William Jefferson and Hillary Rodham Clinton. True to his oath as a military officerto serve his country with honesty, courage, and integrityhe did not write this book as a personal attack on the Clintons.

Lieutenant Colonel Patterson provides something far more valuable to our democratic process: a compelling insight into the people who were entrusted with the highest national authority at a time when America had arrived at the pinnacle of the worlds superpower status. In the most vivid human terms, he describes only those events and decisions having a direct impact on our nations defense capabilities that he witnessed or of which he had firsthand knowledge.

As a career Air Force pilot and squadron commander, before his retirement in 2001, Lieutenant Colonel Patterson served under four U.S. presidents. He received his commission during the dispiriting era following the Vietnam War, and rose up through the ranks during the revitalization of our militarys strength during the Reagan presidency. Aside from his White House duty, he participated in air operations and educating young officers before the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Lieutenant Colonel Patterson shares with his readers his military background leading to his White House tour of duty, describing his numerous military missions flying into areas of conflictat times under fire. Serving during a historical period that rekindled Americas greatness, he participated in the restoration of the morale and competence of the U.S. military. As a young lieutenant he earned his wings in the Grenada rescue mission under the orders of President Reagan. He later served in the headquarters of U.S. Military Airlift Command during the invasion of Panama and later in Operation Desert Storm under President George H. W. Bush.

As he rose in rank in the Clinton administrations early years, Lieutenant Colonel Patterson further developed the skills and responsibilities of command during the Somalia humanitarian missionbefore and after the ambush portrayed in the book and movie Black Hawk Downand by ferrying peacekeeping troops into Haiti. During the gruesome civil war in Bosnia, he was assigned by the Air Force to build and lead a team of skilled aviators to deliver humanitarian supplies into the besieged Sarajevo airport. While the Clinton administrations deconstruction of Americas military power was gaining momentum, in late 1995 Lieutenant Colonel Patterson was selected, much to his surprise, to be a member of the elite presidential military aides. From this privileged vantage point, he was able to witness history, controversy, and deceit at the highest levels.

In mid-2002, I was invited by publisher Al Regnery and editor Harry Crocker to work with Lieutenant Colonel Patterson on the format of this book. My own experiences as a combat infantry veteran of the Vietnam War, an author of military history, and a congressional advisor and investigatorpart of my thirty-five years of service in foreign policy and defense issuesallowed me to understand Lieutenant Colonel Patterson as a true patriot and an unselfish warrior.

While Lieutenant Colonel Patterson was witnessing the degradation of our national security from the cockpit of U.S. Air Force C-141 aircraft and in the halls of the White House, I was engaged in broader field investigations and participating in legislative counterattacks as an advisor to subcommittee chairmen of the U.S. House of Representatives who served on the Armed Services, Intelligence, Science, and International Relations Committees.

In early 1995, I took a sabbatical from my role for more than a decade as a contributing editor at Parade magazine in New York to work in the U.S. Congress. The deciding factor in my becoming part of the government system was an investigative report I wrote for Parade in 19941995, just three years after Americas spectacular victory in the Gulf War. At a time when America was enjoying unprecedented prosperity, our finest young men and women, active-duty members of the United States military and their families, were surviving on food stamps and other forms of welfare. Bill Clintons self-professed loathing of the military had manifested itself in a rapid manner.

In less than three years as commander in chief, Clinton and his subordinates, while increasing the number of overseas deployments, reduced the total active-duty force from 2.1 million to 1.6 million men and women. The Army was reduced from eighteen full-strength light and mechanized divisions to a vulnerable twelve (ten fortified divisions had been used in the Gulf War alone). The Navy was reduced from 546 to 380 ships, toward a targeted reduction of 300the smallest naval force since the preWorld War II period. And the Air Force was reduced from seventy-six flight squadrons down to fifty.

The net sum of the Clinton years is global insecurity: conflict between the West and transnational terrorists, conventional and unconventional conflicts on four continents, and the threat of nuclear war on the Indian subcontinent and Korean peninsula, and possibly in the Middle East. The Clinton era is bracketed by the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks on New Yorks World Trade Center. The Clinton administrations reckless disregard for Americas internal security safeguards led to our countrys vulnerability to the unthinkableattacks on our most prominent landmarks and institutions, on our own soil.

Throughout this period, most military experts questioned the Pentagons assertion that the United States could effectively fight and win two and a half regional conflicts simultaneously. Capabilities were further hamstrung by the rapid elimination of 232 strategic bombers and 2,000 Air Force and Navy combat aircraftas well as the entire fleet of battleships, essential tools of American military and political power projection. Beginning in 1994, members of the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees repeatedly warned that the erosion in our forces ability to fight had put the military on a slippery slope.