"Army Secretary Thomas E. White resigned yesterday after a two-year tenure marked by strains with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over support for an Army artillery system and controversy over White's former employment with Enron Corp. A brief Pentagon statement announcing the resignation gave no reason for White's decision to step down as the Army's top civilian. In the statement, Rumsfeld thanked White for his service and said a departure date had not been determined... He was vice chairman of Enron Energy Services when Bush nominated him to the Army post in April 2001... He came under investigation by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether his contacts with former Enron colleagues violated any laws or rules, including insider trading rules... he repeatedly denied assertions by some lawmakers that the corporate division of which he served as vice chairman helped manipulate California's energy market during the state's power crisis in 2001."

Just fired by Rumsfeld, former Army Secretary Thomas White was up to his eyeballs in Enron fraud. Lest we forget, here are the relevant entries from the Bush/Enron Chronology.

The NY Times today called for Army Secretary Thomas White to resign. A former Enron executive, he is embroiled in suspected insider-trading violations of $12 million while the company. He was rebuked by the chairman and ranking Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee for disregarding an ethics agreement requiring him to fully divest himself of Enron stock in a timely fashion. White's claim that he was hoodwinked by CEO Skilling and CFO Fastow is " undermined by his own unit's aggressive accounting, the number of Enron executives who did express concern about the company's ways and Mr. White's ethical lapses since he entered government."

Much has been said about Army Secretary Thomas White's scandalous behavior in office. But Paul Krugman says, "The really important information about Mr. White is that the enterprise he ran, Enron Energy Services, was a fraud - a money-losing operation dressed up to appear highly profitable through deceptive accounting. It is possible though implausible that Mr. White was duped by his subordinates... But that only makes him a fool rather than a knave... So why does this administration, which is waving the flag so hard its arms must hurt, leave the Army - the Army! - in the hands of a man who is, at best, a poseur? One theory I've heard is that Mr. White can't be fired: that there are facts about the administration's relationship with Enron that it doesn't want to come out, and that Mr. White knows where the bodies are buried. My preferred explanation, however, is that Mr. White has been protected by the administration's infallibility complex" - in other words, BLACKMAIL or ARROGANCE.