WASHINGTON – The woman who ran the air campaign to establish a no-fly zone over Libya will now coordinate Air Force programs designed to prevent sexual assault and help victims.
Air Force officials announced Friday that Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward has been assigned to direct the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. The previous chief of sexual assault prevention programs was Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who lost the job last month after he was charged with sexual battery. Police say he approached a woman in a parking lot in Arlington, Va., and groped her. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.
The office that Woodward is taking over will be larger and better-funded than the program Krusinski ran, Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley said Friday. The elevation of the office is a signal of the increasing emphasis the Air Force is putting on the problem of military sexual assault, she said.
Woodward has been serving recently as the Air Force chief of safety at the Pentagon and commander of the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. Last year, she led the investigation of Air Force training in the wake of a sexual assault scandal centered at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. In 2011, Woodward commanded the air campaign that helped establish a no-fly zone over Libya in Operation Odyssey Dawn.
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