Paul M. Cole, who reported millions in waste, fraud and abuse within the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, has been fired from his job in what he says is retaliation for the whistleblowing.

In an internal efficiency report that was leaked to the press last summer, Cole, a scientific fellow working at JPAC, said the "intelligence" (J2) section spent lavishly on luxury hotels and fine dining during what he referred to as "military tourism" trips to Europe.

The J2 section’s field activity responsibility was to locate the remains of American service members missing from past wars so the remains could be recovered and identified, then returned to families.

But the J2 located relatively few remains to recover and identify, Cole maintained.

"The dysfunctional performance of the field activity segment of JPAC’s procurement program is the single greatest threat to the missing person accounting mission," Cole said in the January 2012 report.

He determined that the J2 field activity’s "systemic failure" to locate a sufficient number of remains was the key factor in JPAC’s inability to meet a congressional mandate to produce 200 identifications a year by 2015.

JPAC, headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, has a budget of about $95 million. Last year it made 60 identifications, approximately 10 as a result of JPAC’s field activities, Cole said. Some others came from disinterments of service members buried as "unknowns" at Punchbowl cemetery.

Cole’s report — disavowed by JPAC’s commander — became a national embarrassment for the organization. It was soon followed by a U.S. Government Accountability Office report that was equally critical of the military’s broader accounting effort to recover missing Americans.

A reorganization of JPAC was subsequently ordered by the Pentagon and is now underway.

Cole testified before a House committee on Aug. 1 about JPAC’s shortcomings. He was separately accused by some of siding with JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory in an internal power struggle with the J2 group, now known as "Research and Analysis."

Cole, who worked for the lab, says he was "banned" from the JPAC premises on March 17 and terminated April 16.

In a March 17 letter, JPAC commander Maj. Gen. Kelly McKeague said Cole was being suspended "pending investigation into the possible release of official government information."

What information is not specified.

"I received no notice, no separation pay, was never advised of my alleged misconduct, nor was I given any opportunity to defend myself," Cole said. "This was profoundly unfair."

He denies leaking the internal report he authored.

The political economist and management consultant had just started his fifth and final yearlong contract working for JPAC as a fellow with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, known as ORISE.

Last summer, JPAC’s 584-person staff included 48 ORISE fellows.

"None of the termination procedures included in the ORISE handbook was followed," Cole said. He added: "I’m convinced they did it for retaliatory reasons."

He said he registered with the government as a whistleblower and plans on filing an improper termination lawsuit.

JPAC referred questions about Cole’s termination to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

"Paul Cole was not an employee of JPAC or the federal government; however, we do not discuss personnel matters, even those involving a nonemployee," said Navy Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost, a Defense Department spokeswoman.

One of Cole’s apparent critics was U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri. She wrote on Jan. 16 to Oak Ridge Associated Universities, which oversees the ORISE program, asking for an investigation to see if Cole "violated any ORISE program guidelines" and for a review of whether Cole’s fellowship at JPAC was "in line with Oak Ridge’s mission."

McCaskill said she had received complaints that Cole, using a pseudonym, sent harassing emails to discredit former JPAC colleagues and threatened lawsuits against them.

"We have also been informed that Mr. Cole seems to have repeatedly used his official JPAC email address to communicate with members of the press," McCaskill said.

She also said Cole had been using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain current and former colleagues’ emails.

"If true, these actions raise concerns regarding Mr. Cole’s suitability to participate in the ORISE fellowship program," McCaskill said.

Cole called McCaskill’s use of anonymous complaints "bizarre," and denied harassing or threatening anyone. He said he did communicate with the press using his official JPAC email, which he maintains was not in violation of JPAC or ORISE regulations.

Ivan Boatner, ORAU’s vice president and general counsel, wrote to McCaskill on Feb. 26 and said no "negative information" had been received from JPAC during Cole’s appointment.

"In fact, all of the feedback we have received from JPAC with regard to Dr. Cole has been positive," he said.

He added: "ORAU has no evidence that Dr. Cole has violated any ORISE program guidelines."

Boatner also said that if JPAC provided information that Cole failed to meet expectations or engaged in misconduct, it would take appropriate action.

On April 24, Boatner wrote again to McCaskill, saying that it had received a memorandum from JPAC in which JPAC said it was terminating Cole’s fellowship "based on several incidents of misconduct" including failing to follow rules "pertaining to the release of non-public government information."

"Nothing — nothing — I ‘released’ was ‘non-public government information,’" Cole insists.

COLE’S TROUBLES began when, assigned to the lab, he was charged with producing JPAC standard operating procedures and taking a "snapshot" of JPAC operations.

The draft report was a scathing indictment of the J2 section and included accusations of waste, fraud and abuse. Of the 136 efforts undertaken by JPAC, 15 percent were unwanted, unneeded, unused or wasteful to the tune of more than $3.5 million annually, Cole said.

In 2010 a seven-member team investigated an anonymous lead that an American World War I soldier’s remains were in an underground passageway in Connigis, France.

What they found were a rubber skeleton, some nonhuman bones and some Champagne at the owner’s chateau that apparently was to the team’s liking, Cole wrote.

It was "gross research misconduct," he said.

On another 2010 mission, this time to Italy, a JPAC team spent $58,577, excluding airfare, to retrieve "additional portions" from a 1945 B-26 bomber crash when the crew had been "located, recovered, identified and removed from the roster of the missing 65 years ago," Cole said.

Cole revealed that it took 18 "site surveys" to produce one Southeast Asia identification.

JPAC’s deputy commander reported in late January 2012 that the Cole report, posted internally, was "a raw, uncensored draft containing some contentious material and personalization not intended for open distribution."

Maj. Gen. Stephen Tom, then JPAC’s commander, issued a staff-wide memo in February 2012 saying the Cole report was "disavowed and rejected in its entirety," adding, "It may not be used for any purpose."

Cole said a Research and Analysis section employee in late 2013 circulated an email saying he was a "hit man who tries to dress lies and defamation in academic speak."

A November New York Times story said the Cole report was difficult to take seriously because of his connection to the lab, which competes with the Research and Analysis section for influence and funding.

McCaskill was quoted as saying the report was a "giant, childish mess."

Cole, however, ticked off the list of investigations he says were motivated by his study, including:

» A Pentagon inspector general investigation of waste, fraud and abuse at JPAC.

» A cost assessment and program evaluation assessment of JPAC organizational structure.

» An Institute for Defense Analyses three-month "validation" of his study.

» An ORISE investigation of the accusations made by anonymous sources.

» A hearing before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

» A hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight.

"Not bad for a ‘giant, childish mess,’ " Cole said.