The secretary immediately directed the general counsel of the U.S. Air Force (SAF/GC) to establish a high-level working group to review cadet complaints concerning the academy's program of deterrence and response to sexual assault.
The Secretary also asked the working group to review allegations of sexual assault reported from January 1993 through December 2002.
Taking this data into consideration, on 18 March 2005 a new policy was announced for all US military academies which would permit a victim of sexual assault to seek counseling and medical care confidentially without triggering the disciplinary process.
Hopes were expressed that the new policy, by giving more control over the situation to victims, would also result in more official reporting through disciplinary channels.
[7] On 26 March 2005 it was reported in the combined weekend edition of the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post that acting Secretary of the Air Force, Peter B. Teets had recommended in a memo to Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary that former commanders and other Air Force officers, now mostly retired, who were implicated in the sexual assault scandal by the inspection by the inspector general's office and the Fowler Commission not be prosecuted as they had "acted in good faith" and "were not intentionally or willfully derelict in their duties" as they attempted to deal with the sexual assault issue.
Continuing, Teets wrote, "Moreover, any mistakes or misjudgments some of them may have made are mitigated by the complexity of the issues they faced, the necessity of policy trade-offs and compromises, and the difficulty of measuring program effectiveness... .
Given their uniform excellence and long service to the Air Force and their country, I have determined that taking the highly unusual step of imposing disciplinary action against these retired members under these circumstances is not warranted.