Just coming up: Navy Panel Urges No Court-Martial for Sub’s Skipper. “The Navy’s court of inquiry into the collision between an
American submarine and a Japanese vessel has recommended
that the submarine’s skipper not be tried by a
court-martial, senior Pentagon officials said.” A reprimand and early retirement are likely instead. It makes sense to me not to scapegoat the commander too directly, but not for the Navy’s reason, which is to maintain morale in the Pacific Fleet. The blame probably lies higher up, with those who turned a lethal high-performance war machine into an amusement park ride for high-rolling political campaign comtributors.

The testimony indicated that the submarine went to sea that day only for the
sake of the 16 civilians on board, three of whom were seated at some of the
controls at the time of the collision.

The Greeneville’s regularly scheduled training mission had been canceled as
unnecessary, so a third of the crew stayed in port during the exercise, and the
commander did not take measures to reassign other members of the crew to
cover the absentees. He was also unaware that 9 of 13 sailors manning watch
stations had switched positions without telling him.

Some equipment was not functioning properly, but the commander did not
discuss that with his senior officers, according to the testimony. Because of a long
lunch with the visitors, the submarine was running behind schedule, and was
rushing to make up time. As a result, four safety procedures, ranging from the
way the Greeneville tracked nearby ships to the way it surfaced and used its
periscope, were skipped or abbreviated.

After the accident, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered a halt to the
practice of letting civilians take the controls of military equipment.

How to mollify Japan, with which we could never get away with the brand of lying diplomacy we recently perpetrated on the Chinese in the spy plane incident, will remain an interesting challenge. New York Times