Do you approve of Donald Rumsfeld's performance?

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
I do know that while the MSM seems to love beating up on Rummy, you do not hear a lot of negativity about him in conservative circles.

Therefore, until I start to hear rumbling from the right that Rummy must go I shall refrain from calling for his replacement.

I don't care about senators on the left or right calling for his resignation.
When there are lots of high quality generals calling for his resignation, now THAT I care about.

Gen. Charles Swannack
Gen. John Batiste
Gen. Anthony Zinni
Gen. Paul Eaton
Gen. Gregory Newbold
Gen. John Riggs
Gen. Jack Keane
Gen. Paul Van Riper
Gen. Thomas X. Hammes

The list goes on and on...

"Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of the views of senior military officers since the day he walked in as secretary of defense. It's about time they got sick and tired," Thomas E. White, the former Army secretary, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. White was forced out of his job by Rumsfeld in April of 2003.


It's time for this man to go.
Period.

 

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Can somebody on the left clarify something for me.

You bitch that Rummy did not send enough troops in the first place.

So does that mean you would now support more troops being sent to Iraq to try and make up for this problem?

Is Rumsfeld going to now actually have the "several hundred thousand troops" that Gen. Charles Swannack asked for in Iraq?

If he's only sending the extra 3,000 troops like he's doing now, forget it.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: DonVito

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Can somebody on the left clarify something for me.

You bitch that Rummy did not send enough troops in the first place.

So does that mean you would now support more troops being sent to Iraq to try and make up for this problem?

For the record, I have read a little bit here and there about Rummy. I am not sitting around in my free time reading Policy and Review and trying to decide how the Pentagon should be run. I do know that while the MSM seems to love beating up on Rummy, you do not hear a lot of negativity about him in conservative circles.
Since I know the MSM is more interested in selling news and pushing papers than making sound decisions I tend to ignore them in matters like this. And I know the Democrats are more interested in politics than anything else.
Therefore, until I start to hear rumbling from the right that Rummy must go I shall refrain from calling for his replacement.

And before you attack me for getting news and opinion from National Review or talk radio you should know that National Review does a very good job of backing up their ideas with information and stories from other sources. They are not moveon.org or dailykos by any stretch of the imagination.

Actually, I think there's a good argument for sending more troops even now. It will never happen, since it would necessitate a draft, but to the extent we care about winning the war (assuming for the moment that that is even possible at this point), it is critical.

The better fix, of course, would have been not starting the war in the first place, and for that I assign a large share of the blame to Rumsfeld. He, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle, Feith et al had planned on this war long before 9/11. Once they had decided to do it, he ignored the advice of his commanders about the needed troop strength numbers, and fired and threatened them for telling him the emperor had no clothes.

I don't really take issue with your choice of pundits when it comes to reading opinion pieces on Rumsfeld - I take issue with your ignorance of the facts of his conduct, with Gen Shinseki being just the most obvious example. I don't see how you could have escaped hearing about Gen Shinseki, if you're a politically aware person.

I hear about the General on here from you people every day. But then I read and hear what Tommy Franks says and it sort of balances out right?
There were people on both sides who said more troops or less troops.
From a quick reading it seems that his view on the need for more troops was that we needed 500,000 just to get Saddam out of power, and then large amounts to keep the peace. Well we obviously we didn't need 500,000 to take over, most likely could have done it with a lot less. So he was wrong about that for sure (never hear anyone on here point out that mistake, instead you just focus on where he agrees with you and ignore the rest)

Link? I've heard a LOT about Shinseki's various views on Iraq, and I've NEVER heard that he thought we'd need 500,000 troops just to topple Saddam. In any case, while such an estimate would be wrong, having enough soldiers is like having enough jet fuel in your airplane, I'm a lot more forgiving if your estimate is off on the high side than the low side. Sending too many troops results in wasted manpower and money, sending too few troops results in thousands of dead Americans and many tens of thousands of dead Iraqis. Even if Shinseki was off in terms of how many troops it would take to topple Saddam, that's a LOT less deadly of a mistake than Rumsfeld's.

As far as how many troops were needed, Rumsfeld was of the belief that you would need less troops after the take over than before, and of course Rummy was wrong on that.
I think the blame of our failures after the take over go beyond Rumsfeld and fall more into a failure of the system ala 9-11. The people in charge just didn't seem to grasp the size of the problems we would have post take over, they thought Iraq would quickly convert to a peaceful nation. They'll be writing books about this for a long time to come. And I am sure they will be teaching this in the war college as well, just like they teach Vietnam now, or did last time I heard.
The question is how much of this failure do you lay at Rumsfeld's feet?

If by "the people in charge" you mean Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, then yeah, they clearly didn't grasp the magnitude of the problem. But it is VERY well documented that the folks who really do know a thing or two about occupations, including a lot of folks attached to war colleges, DID grasp the magnitude of the problem. The estimates, suggestions and studies from experts in the military and civilian worlds all point to the exact same thing...that rebuilding and occupying Iraq would take a significant number of troops, far more than were actually sent, and be a significant undertaking. The "system" didn't fail, the system predicted almost exactly what would happen and what would be necessary to stop it. The only people singing the "greeted with sweets and flowers" tune were the top folks in the Bush administration, especially Rumsfeld. This idea of laying the blame on the folks on the pointy end is a long standing tradition among Republicans, "support the troops" aside, but as is usually the case, it's revisionist fiction.

For some historical perspective look at Les Aspin and the Somalia problem. Aspin refused the request for tanks and AC-130 gun ships and after 18 soldiers died many in congress demanded he resign, and yet Clinton stood behind him. So it is not unusual for a President to stand behind the Sec of Defense even after mistakes have been made.

Read<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbar...n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki</a>">Eric Shinseki's</a> profile on wiki for some interesting stuff.
One thing to note, he was not forcefully "retired" as Kerry and I believe some on this board say, he retired right as he had be scheduled, not forced out.

Edit: :thumbsup: to Pen for admiting his mistake, so many would have just ignored it and moved on.

Yeah, he wasn't "forced to retire", but Bush DID announce his replacement months before he was actually supposed to leave. That kind of thing is almost never done for a top official because it creates a "lame duck" kind of status that takes away a lot of their ability to do their job. Shinseki wasn't kicked out in the usual sense, but the Bush administration clearly went after him in one of the nastier ways they could think of.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Amazing . . . I had no idea that Les Aspen's poor judgment on Somalia is comparable to 3 years of failed policy in Iraq.:roll:

 

[Zebo]

It's not really rummys fault.. he's totally indoctrinated with cultural relativism combined with a military that does'nt play to to win. Anyone in that post is doomed to fail with current leadership and western psychology, it's written on the wall of 50 years of US failue..

 

[trenchfoot]

on thinking back about some comments that rummy have made concerning the troops he commands, what's quite telling is his underlying attitude toward the military in general.

it speaks of viewing the military from a very impersonal or rather institutional point of view. a view that is devoid of the same emotions that one would have if the military was a preferred way of life.

imho, a shared sense of pride, honor, dedication to duty and the commitment to sacrifice your life for your country that are an intrinsic part of what makes our military the professional warriors they are, are all missing in rumsfeld's persona.

he is a bean counter, which, in deference to all the other bean counters out there, is in itself not a bad thing. however, it would be a fatal flaw in his character if he applies the same logic to the personnel he commands as he would to any tangible resource in his accounting ledger. imho, rummy is chronic in this regard.

i understand that even our top commanders in uniform must look at certain aspects of strategizing from a similar point of view. however, what separates them from rummy are all those characteristics i mentioned that one acquires from living their lives in uniform, especially the characteristic of being compassionate and totally loyal to the fellow troops of their respective commands, and not "just a statistic", as i believe rummy views them as.

without this point of view, i consider rummy wholly inadequate and totally out of touch with the members of our military whose lives are in his hands. a very dangerous thing that directly threatens the lives and welfare of our fighting forces.

that being said, i can also sympathize with those generals that on the one hand must obey rummy's commands, yet must also suffer from the circumstances and concequences of the fact that rummy does not share the same sense of duty that living your whole adult life in the military would bring.

edit- grmr

 

[ericlp]

Yeah it's real fun listening to this idiot second in line with idiot bush saying how the ah and shock program in Iraq was 90% success rate when reality none of the bombs hit their intended targets. What a bunch of BS. Both bush and rummy need to be put in prison for lying and deceiving the American public.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Link? I've heard a LOT about Shinseki's various views on Iraq, and I've NEVER heard that he thought we'd need 500,000 troops just to topple Saddam. In any case, while such an estimate would be wrong, having enough soldiers is like having enough jet fuel in your airplane, I'm a lot more forgiving if your estimate is off on the high side than the low side. Sending too many troops results in wasted manpower and money, sending too few troops results in thousands of dead Americans and many tens of thousands of dead Iraqis. Even if Shinseki was off in terms of how many troops it would take to topple Saddam, that's a LOT less deadly of a mistake than Rumsfeld's.

If by "the people in charge" you mean Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, then yeah, they clearly didn't grasp the magnitude of the problem. But it is VERY well documented that the folks who really do know a thing or two about occupations, including a lot of folks attached to war colleges, DID grasp the magnitude of the problem. The estimates, suggestions and studies from experts in the military and civilian worlds all point to the exact same thing...that rebuilding and occupying Iraq would take a significant number of troops, far more than were actually sent, and be a significant undertaking. The "system" didn't fail, the system predicted almost exactly what would happen and what would be necessary to stop it. The only people singing the "greeted with sweets and flowers" tune were the top folks in the Bush administration, especially Rumsfeld. This idea of laying the blame on the folks on the pointy end is a long standing tradition among Republicans, "support the troops" aside, but as is usually the case, it's revisionist fiction.


Yeah, he wasn't "forced to retire", but Bush DID announce his replacement months before he was actually supposed to leave. That kind of thing is almost never done for a top official because it creates a "lame duck" kind of status that takes away a lot of their ability to do their job. Shinseki wasn't kicked out in the usual sense, but the Bush administration clearly went after him in one of the nastier ways they could think of.

Sorry Rain, did not know that my link wasn't working... oops.

From the NOW working link Erik Shinseki

Apart from issues of "personality clash", Shinseki and Rumsfeld approached military dogma with significant substantive differences. For example, following September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld was in a meeting whose subject was the review of the Department of Defense's (Contingency) Plan in the event of a war with Iraq (U.S. Central Command OPLAN 1003-98). The plan (as it was then conceived) contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, which Rumsfeld opined was far too many.

Like I said, 500,000 which was WAY more than actually needed.

There is no doubt that Rummy misestimated the number of troops needed to win the "peace"
This seems to be a general problem with the military though. They are really good at wining wars, but lousy at what we do after we won. Case in point Afghanistan and Iraq. Great victories in the war followed by a lot of mistakes "winning the peace"
I think our leadership needs to understand this problem and work on ways to get around it in the future. The military is really good at "killing people and breaking things" but they tend to suck at a lot of other things. This isn't just under Bush, but was a similar problem with Clinton and Somalia and the US troops in Lebanon in the 80's etc.

About the "Bush DID announce his replacement months" comment you made. It appears that this is a false comment. As also written in my link

In April 2002, 14 months before Shinseki was due to retire, Washington Post reported, quoting "Pentagon officials", that his replacement had already been selected. "In another unusual move, Rumsfeld has tapped Army Gen. John Keane, the No. 2 officer in the Army, to succeed the current chief of that service, Gen. Eric Shinseki, whose term runs out next year. Selecting a successor for the current chief so far in advance is highly unusual." [6] This marked departure from precedent, if true, was seen by some as in some way undercutting Shinseki's authority within the Army. However, it has never been established where this report came from, or whether it had any basis in fact; in the event, Shinseki's successor was not Keane, but Peter Schoomaker.

So it seems that whole report was most likely false. MAYBE the story was planted to under cut Shinseki, but we will most
likely never know, unless the "source" for the leak is named. (Which will most likely happen 20 years from now after the source is gone)

 

[ProfJohn]

I love the poll. 117 people claim to have not voted for Bush while 21 did vote for Bush.

Either we have a lot of Bush voters who are lying, or this place leans WAY more to the left than any of us would have thought.