quote: Army Times: "Time for Rumsfeld to Go" By Andrew S. Ross The San Francisco Chronicle
Friday 03 November 2006
An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The papers are sold to American servicemen and women. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, which is a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc.
Here is the text of the editorial, an advance copy of which we received this afternoon.
Time for Rumsfeld to Go
"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth."
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the "hard bruising" truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "mission accomplished," the insurgency is "in its last throes," and "back off," we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of US Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war."
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on "critical" and has been sliding toward "chaos" for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for US troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don't show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he'll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers' deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
posted
The White House has dismissed the article as poorly written tripe. And, earlier, fumbled an attempt to hock the blame on the 'generals on the ground.'
MEANWHILE
quote:WASHINGTON — Richard N. Perle, the former Pentagon advisor regarded as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq war, now believes he should not have backed the U.S.-led invasion, and he holds President Bush responsible for failing to make timely decisions to stem the rising violence, according to excerpts from a magazine interview.
Perle — a leading neoconservative who chaired the Pentagon's defense advisory board for the first three years of the Bush administration — is quoted in January's Vanity Fair as saying the U.S. might have been able to strip Saddam Hussein of his ability to build unconventional weapons "by means other than a direct military intervention."
I'll see your Golly and raise you a Double-Golly!
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quote: The White House has dismissed the article as poorly written tripe. And, earlier, fumbled an attempt to hock the blame on the 'generals on the ground.'
Are you for serious? Blaming the generals on the ground doesn't sound like the kind of thing the Bush administration would say.
If your second posted factoid is true, that is really interesting.
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White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president was told about the editorial, and his reaction was to "shrug it off."
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman downplayed the "new chorus of criticism."
[It] is actually old news and does not include commanders in the field, who remain committed to the mission," Whitman said.
"The assertion, without evidence, that senior military officers are 'toeing the line' is an insult to their judgment and integrity," he added.
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quote:Are you for serious? Blaming the generals on the ground doesn't sound like the kind of thing the Bush administration would say.
I left out a portion of that; it was Boehner, house majority leader, who did the explicit blaming. It was on CNN, he said "Let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld."
Blitzer said "But he's in charge of the military!"
Boehner responded "But the fact is, .. the generals on the ground are in charge! And he works closely with them and the president.
He was given an opportunity to take back that comment but he decided to stick with it. Later, in a surreal moment, his spokesman later insisted that blaming the military for losing the war is not actually criticizing the military.
posted
"Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."
The catastrophe that Iraq has become has led to the inevitable search for scapegoats.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Neo-cons are the most popular choices, but Bush is already a lame duck, and unlikely to run for any political office after his second term. Ditto for Cheney.
In this election year, Bush played pin-the-tail-on-the Democratic donkey by making pre-emptive claims that "a vote for Democrats means the terrorists win."
Like Sam just posted, Bush has also made a lateral pass-the-buck move to blame generals for the FUBAR. edit:that's right, it was Boehner. I misremembered it as Bush.
But to me the most surprising back-stabbings are the recent interviews of Neo-con psuedo-intellectuals in which they accept little or no blame and, despite many warnings from the uniformed military beforehand, are shocked that the occupation has turned into such a bloodbath. They pass that hot potato firmly back to Bush.
Wow, I tried to get a cliche in every paragraph and I think I did.
Anyhoo, Rumsfeld is the obvious choice for the president to dump/scapegoat. I'd be surprised if he lasts till the summer. Though I've predicted his demise before and he's still there.
quote:WASHINGTON — Richard N. Perle, the former Pentagon advisor regarded as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq war, now believes he should not have backed the U.S.-led invasion...
Wow. I wonder what Wolfowitz is saying these days?
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posted
Why is Rumsfeld still around, because President Bush believes that Loyalty is an excellent quality to have in his minions, even better than competence.
What he is discovering is that competence breeds loyalty, but loyalty does not breed compentence.
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posted
They publish their opinion the day after the election. That gives it more weight with me. If it was published earlier in the week, there could have been acusations of partisan infiltration.
Conservative papers are mad at Rumsfeld. They say so the day after the election. This sounds strongly of truth to me.
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posted
I have long puzzled over why Rumsfeld and Bush are perceived as leading the War effort. Do they really mean to represent it like that, or has it been a strategy by the media? Wars should be run by generals, not by a bureaucrat and a Yalie. So why don't we know the names of any of these Generals on the ground? I think it was the media's design all along that no Colin Powell emerge from this war.
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WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is stepping down and former CIA Director Robert Gates will take over at the Pentagon and in prosecuting the war in Iraq ...
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posted
pooka, it is widely reported that Rumsfeld revamped the defense department, setting up his own parallel intelligence agencies, and making the decision as far as what evidence to believe in the "go-to-war" decision. He also has the authority to change the way we do things in our conflicts (with Bush's approval required, presumably), but he has done nothing/nothing that has turned out successful since the initial invasion.
And Bush couches a lot of his signing documents about things related to the War on terror/Iraq by invoking the Commander-In-Chief clause of the Constitution. This means he is saying (in a way) that because he heads the military, that he can execute laws passed in the area as he deems necessary (that's a bit strong of a way to put it though).
The generals have already cycled once or twice, and they have been asking the Dept. of Defense to work to get more troops on the ground, among other things, but Rumsfeld has not bothered to bring it up.
pooka, I think you have a bit too much paranoia about the media's designs on this. I don't think it's reasonable to assume all the "mainstream media" folks are conspiring, however subtle, to paint them this way. I have similar feelings to those that feared that with the new electronic systems, there would be rampant fraud (as opposed to the usual localized hiccups). Or, conversely, if you wish your premise to be given real weight, then you should also have to give weight to those that believe the media designed to get GWB elected in 2000, because of the way they painted Gore as a robot, and GWB as a regular guy/Compassionate Conservative. I have seen (non-scientific) information that went through listing the ratio of favorable-to-unfavorable news stories during the 2000 election, and it wasn't even close between the two.
Personally, I think both stances are on pretty weak footing.
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