Barry McCaffrey

Barry Richard McCaffrey
McCaffrey in February 1994
4th Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
In office February 29, 1996 – January 4, 2001
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Lee P. Brown
Succeeded by	John P. Walters
Personal details
Born	(1942-11-17) November 17, 1942 Taunton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1964–1996
Rank	General
Commands	24th Infantry Division U.S. Southern Command

Barry Richard McCaffrey (born November 17, 1942) is a retired United States Army general, news commentator, and business consultant.

He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the U.S. Military Academy, where he was the Bradley Professor of International Security Studies from 2001 to 2005. He is also an NBC and MSNBC military analyst as well as president of his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates.

Education

McCaffrey attended Phillips Academy, Andover. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (Class of 1964), and earned an M.A. in Civil Government from the American University in 1970. He also attended the National Security and Executive Education programs at Harvard University. His postgraduate military education includes the National Defense University, the United States Army War College, the Command and General Staff College, and the Defense Language Institute's program in Vietnamese.

Military career

Following his graduation from West Point in 1964, McCaffrey was commissioned into the infantry.

His combat tours included action in the Dominican Republic with the 82nd Airborne Division in 1965, advisory duty with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam from 1966–67, and company command with the 1st Cavalry Division from 1968–69. During the course of his service in the Vietnam War he was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart three times and the Silver Star twice.

During Operation Desert Storm, McCaffrey commanded the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). Under his command, the division conducted the "left hook" attack 370 km into Iraq. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In Operation Desert Storm he was known for his speed and boldness. Joe Galloway, the co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, rode with and reported on the division, where he favorably compared McCaffrey with Hal Moore.

General McCaffrey's peacetime assignments included tours as an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy from 1972–75, Assistant Commandant at the U.S. Army Infantry School; Deputy U.S. Representative to NATO; Assistant Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS); Director of Strategic Plans and Policy, JCS.

General McCaffrey's last command in the Army was that of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the unified command responsible for U.S. military activities in Central and South America. He commanded SOUTHCOM, whose headquarters were then in the Republic of Panama, from 1994 to 1996. Besides managing military personnel, as part of his duties in Panama, McCaffrey supported humanitarian operations for over 10,000 Cuban refugees in 1996. It was also during his last military position that he created the first Human Rights Council and Human Rights Code of Conduct for U.S. Military Joint Command.

McCaffrey was the youngest General in the Army at the time of his retirement.

ONDCP Director

Gen. McCaffrey was Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2001.

He was confirmed by unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate on 29 February 1996. He served as a member of the President’s Cabinet and the National Security Council for drug-related issues. He strategized, created, directed, and certified the $19.2 billion federal drug control budget, including doubling treatment funding, and developed the U.S. National Drug Control Strategy.

Honors and recognitions

Among the honors Gen. McCaffrey has received are: Health and Human Services Lifetime Achievement Award For Extraordinary Achievement in the Field of Substance Abuse Prevention (2004); recognized as one of the 500 Most Influential People in American Foreign Policy by World Affairs Councils of America (2004); the Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; The Central Intelligence Agency Great Seal Medallion; the Norman E. Zinberg Award of the Harvard Medical School; the Founders Award of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry; the NAACP Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award; the National Drug Prevention League Leadership Award; the American Methadone Treatment Association Friend of the Field Award; The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America National Leadership Award; the National Association of Drug Court Professionals Leadership Award; The Order of the Lion, Lions Club International; National Association of State Alcohol & Drug Abuse Directors Leadership Award; The Federal Law Enforcement Foundation's National Service Award; The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America Lifetime Achievement Award; the United States Coast Guard Distinguished Public Service Award; and decorations from France, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Gen. McCaffrey serves as a director and senior policy advisory of CRC Health Group, the country’s largest drug, alcohol and behavioral treatment provider, with over 140 facilities nationwide and headquarters in Cupertino, CA. He also serves on the Board of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and is Chair of its Veterans Committee.

He has been elected to the Board of Directors of CRC Health Corporation, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), and the Atlantic Council of the United States. He is also: a member of the U.S. Energy Security Council; the Council on Foreign Relations; an Associate of the Inter-American Dialogue; Chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Education Center Advisory Board; and a member of the Board of Advisors of the National Infantry Foundation, as well as the National Armor & Cavalry Heritage Foundation.

Comments on the War on Terror and the Iraq War

McCaffrey has harshly criticized American treatment of detainees during the War on Terror. According to McCaffrey: "We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A." He "supports an investigation of the government lawyers who knowingly advocated illegal torture, and he specifically cited Bush's White House counsel and attorney general in the same discussion, emphasizing that 'we better find out how we went so wrong.'"

In June 2005, he surveyed Iraq on behalf of U.S. Central Command and wrote an optimistic report afterwards. In it, he says the U.S. senior military leadership team is superb and predicts the insurgency will reach its peak from January-to-September 2006, allowing for U.S. force withdrawals in the late summer of 2006. A year later, however, after visiting Iraq again, his assessment was grim: "Iraq is abject misery... I think it's a terribly dangerous place for diplomats and journalists and contractors and Iraqi mothers. Trying to go about daily life in that city is a real nightmare for these poor people." He called Abu Ghraib "the biggest mistake that happened so far." In an official memorandum, McCaffrey nevertheless expressed optimism about the operation's longer term future:

"The situation is perilous, uncertain, and extreme – but far from hopeless. The U.S. Armed Forces are a rock. This is the most competent and brilliantly led military in a tactical and operational sense that we have ever fielded... There is no reason why the U.S. cannot achieve our objectives in Iraq. Our aim must be to create a viable federal state under the rule of law which does not: enslave its own people, threaten its neighbors, or produce weapons of mass destruction. This is a ten year task. We should be able to draw down most of our combat forces in 3–5 years. We have few alternatives to the current US strategy which is painfully but gradually succeeding. This is now a race against time. Do we have the political will, do we have the military power, will we spend the resources required to achieve our aims?"

His assessment noted several negative areas as well as very positive areas in the struggle for democracy in the country.

McCaffrey returned a third time in March, 2007, and followed the visit with a third memorandum. The grimness of the 2006 assessment was repeated, additionally asserting a concern about the effect of the continuing war on the readiness of the small-sized U.S. military. He tempered his optimism about the future saying: "There are encouraging signs that the peace and participation message does resonate with many of the more moderate Sunni and Shia warring factions."

Current Work

Gen. McCaffrey is president of his own consulting firm based in Alexandria, Virginia (www.mccaffreyassociates.com). He serves as a national security and terrorism analyst in the media. The Washington Speakers Bureau (www.washingtonspeakers.com) exclusively represents his speeches.

See also

• Biography portal

Further reading

• Forbes, Daniel (May 15, 2000). "Gulf War Crimes?". Salon.
• "General hits at Gulf 'insults'". BBC News. May 16, 2000.
• Geyer, Georgie Anne (May 19, 2000). "Seymour Hersh's Gulf War Misconceptions" (subscription required). Chicago Tribune. p. 23.
• Stephanopoulos, George; Donaldson, Sam; Roberts, Cokie (May 21, 2000). "General Colin Powell Discusses His Group America's Promise". This Week. ABC News.
• Hersh, Seymour (May 22, 2000). "Overwhelming Force". The New Yorker. pp. 49-82.
• McCaffrey, Barry R. (May 22, 2000). "The New Yorker's Revisionist History" (subscription required). Wall Street Journal.
• Judd, Jackie; Jennings, Peter (June 15, 2000). "Investigation into Killing of Unarmed Iraqi Soldiers". ABC World News Tonight.
• McCaffrey, Barry R. (March 26, 2007). "Visit Iraq and Kuwait, 9-16 March 2007" (PDF). Iraq's Inconvenient Truth. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 13, 2008.

External links

• McCaffrey Associates, General McCaffrey's company