The independent review will be conducted in addition to assessments by the defense secretary’s chief of staff and the White House after top officials were not notified of the episode for days.
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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was put in intensive care after complications from a surgery he underwent on Dec. 22 to remove his prostate.
The Pentagon’s inspector general said on Thursday that he would investigate the handling of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s continuing hospitalization, which Mr. Austin and his top aides failed to disclose to President Biden and Congress for days after he developed serious complications from prostate cancer surgery.
The inspector general, Robert P. Storch, wrote in a memo to Mr. Austin and the deputy defense secretary, Kathleen H. Hicks, that his office would begin this month to examine “the roles, processes, procedures, responsibilities and actions” related to the hospitalization.
The office would also scrutinize whether the Defense Department’s “policies and procedures are sufficient to ensure timely and appropriate notifications and the effective transition of authorities as may be warranted due to health-based or other unavailability of senior leadership,” Mr. Storch said.
The independent review will be conducted in addition to a 30-day assessment by Mr. Austin’s office. The White House has also ordered a review after its top officials were not notified until three days after the defense secretary was admitted with the complications. Lawmakers have also said they will investigate the matter.
Mr. Austin, 70, was in severe pain and rushed to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Jan. 1. He was put in intensive care after complications from a surgery he underwent on Dec. 22 to remove his prostate, the hospital disclosed this week.
But several senior aides at the Defense Department did not learn of the secretary’s hospitalization until the next day, Jan. 2. The White House was not notified until Jan. 4, a major breach in protocol at the highest national security levels. Further complicating matters, neither Pentagon nor White House officials learned until Tuesday that Mr. Austin had been diagnosed with cancer last month.
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Source: nytimes.com
