We now have four retired generals, all with distinguished combat service records, calling for Ronald Dumbsfeld's resignation. Linkage.
I wish I could add a comment, but considering their qualifications to speak, their words say far more than anything I could post. :QAnother retired general amplifies calls for Rumsfeld's resignation
By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON ? The retired commander of key forces in Iraq called Wednesday for Donald Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military commanders who have harshly criticized the secretary of defense's authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.
"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, said retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-05. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."
Batiste said many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," he said earlier Wednesday on CNN.
Batiste told CNN that he was struck by the "lack of sacrifice and commitment on the part of the American people" to the war, with the exception of families with soldiers fighting in Iraq. "I think that our executive and legislative branches of government have a responsibility to mobilize this country for war. They frankly have not done so. We're mortgaging our future, our children, $8 [billion] to $9 billion a month," he said, referring to war costs.
Batiste's comments resonate especially within the Army because it widely is known there that he was offered and declined a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there, because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld. Also, before going to Iraq, he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the senior military assistant to Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense.
Batiste said he believes the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Batiste has said he thinks the violation of another military principle of ensuring there is an adequate number of forces helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.
His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Rumsfeld by three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their peers feel the same way.
"We won't get fooled again," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002, wrote in an essay in Time magazine this week. Listing a series of mistakes such as "McNamara-like micromanagement," a reference to the Vietnam War-era secretary of defense, Newbold called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach."
[/b]Another top officer who served in Iraq, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, last month wrote a New York Times opinion piece in which he called Rumsfeld "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically."[/b] Eaton, who oversaw training of Iraqi army troops in 2003-04, said "Mr. Rumsfeld must step down."
Also, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a longtime critic of Rumsfeld and the administration's handling of the Iraq war, has been more vocal lately as he publicizes a new book. "The problem is that we've wasted three years" in Iraq, said Zinni, who was chief of U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, in the late 1990s. He added that he "absolutely" believes that Rumsfeld should resign.
Gen. Peter Pace, the first Marine to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted Tuesday to tamp down the revolt of the retired generals. No officers were muzzled during the planning of the invasion of Iraq, he said. "We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "The articles that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong."
Lawrence Di Rita, a counselor to the Defense Department, disagreed with the retired generals' characterizations of Rumsfeld's style. "People are entitled to their opinions. What they are not entitled to is their own facts. ... The assertions about inadequate exposure to military judgment are just fundamentally incorrect."
Other retired generals said they think it is unlikely that the denunciations of Rumsfeld and his aides will cease.
"A lot of them are hugely frustrated," in part because Rumsfeld gave the impression that "military advice was neither required nor desired" in the planning for the Iraq war, said retired Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, who until last year commanded Marine forces in the Pacific theater. He said he is sensing much anger among Americans over the administration's handling of the war and thinks the continuing barrage of criticism from military professionals will fuel that anger as the November elections approach. He declined to discuss his personal views.
Another retired officer, former Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, said he thinks his peer group is "a pretty close-mouthed bunch," but even so his sense is that "everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out."
He emphatically agrees, he said, explaining that he thinks the defense secretary and his advisers have "made fools of themselves, and totally underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict."
Military experts expressed some concern about the new outspokenness of retired generals.
"I think it flatly is a bad thing," said Richard Kohn, a University of North Carolina military historian who writes frequently on civil-military relations. He said he worries that it could undermine civilian control of the military, especially by making civilian leaders feel they need to be careful about what they say around officers, for fear of being denounced by those officers as soon as they retire.
"How can you prosecute a war if the military and civilians don't trust each other?" Kohn asked.
Also, the generals themselves may be partly to blame for the fiasco in Iraq, along with Rumsfeld and the White House, said Michael Vickers, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
"It's just absurd to lay the blame on Don Rumsfeld alone," he said.
Some of Batiste's CNN comments were reported by Reuters.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
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