13
Apr
Rumsfeld: Captain Queeg, but without his marbles
Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld is coming under increasing, if belated fire, from retired senior military officers. At least five retired Army generals — one of whom resigned in advance of the Iraq invasion to protest the Pentagon’s plans — and two retired Marine generals have either called outright for Rumsfeld’s resignation or have described an atmosphere of intense frustration among general officers in the two branches. The last time we saw the military make this much fuss about one of their civilian bosses was in John Frankenheimer’s classic 1964 film, “Seven Days in May.”
The Washington Post reported on the growing Pentagon revolt in a front page story today, quoting a number of retired officers who went on record with their concerns about Rumsfeld, and CNN added yet another name to the list only hours ago.
Of all the comments, the ones coming from Army Major General John Batiste will likely carry the most weight among senior active duty officers. According to the Post, Batiste turned down a second tour in Iraq and the promise of a third star because he could no longer work under Rumsfeld.
Batiste’s comments resonate especially within the Army: It is widely known there that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there but he declined 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 D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense.Batiste said he believes that 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 — ensuring there are enough forces — helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.
Another retiree whose story will reverberate is Marine Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, who retired in 2002, prior to the Iraq invasion, after arguing against the war plans pressed by Rumsfeld and his then-deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Newbold may not have had as much to lose as Batiste at that point; his outspokenness had probably already cost him any chance he may have had for another star. Invoking The Who’s classic anthem, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” Newbold wrote in Time Magazine that “Never again, we thought, would our military’s senior leaders remain silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-considered engagement. It’s 35 years later, and the judgment is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again.”
From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq–an unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots’ rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat–al-Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11’s tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I’ve been silent long enough.I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.
With the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader’s responsibility is to give voice to those who can’t–or don’t have the opportunity to–speak. Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.
Calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation have been in the air for at least two years, ever since it became apparent that the war in Iraq wasn’t going according to plan, and intensified after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. For the most part, the pressure arose from quarters primarily concerned with providing political cover for the White House and from people who were horrified by Abu Ghraib and other ghoulish manifestations of the Rumsfeld touch.
Now, though, it appears we may be seeing an at least loosely coordinated attempt by retired and serving general officers to force Rumsfeld out.
That any significant number of senior officers, retired or otherwise, would take such a step in the middle of a war is astonishing. A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable, and even now it’s more than a bit scary: in most circumstances you really don’t want to see the military dictating who will or won’t be their civilian boss; it’s a short march from the Pentagon to the White House. In this case, though, unlike the “Seven Days in May” scenario, it’s the zealots wearing civvies and the voices of reason wearing the stars.
As Newbold points out in his Time essay, the trauma senior officers are suffering is in some part self-inflicted: they have not just the right but the obligation to speak out internally against plans they think run counter to the national interest, and it appears that very few of them have done while still on active duty. That’s a tragedy: they might have saved the country considerable loss of blood and treasure.
But when you compare the behavior of Newbold and his fellow retirees with that of senior administration officials such as Colin Powell and others, who operate under considerably fewer institutional and cultural restraints and who have acknowledged in muted dribs and drabs that they knew things had gone badly awry in the White House and Pentagon but chose not to speak out publicly until well after the damage was done, the military guys look positively heroic.
That said, the odds that Rumsfeld will go are not good (even though he says his military commanders always get everything they need). By refusing to dump Rumsfeld when the opportunities arose, after Abu Ghraib and early last year when the insurgency proved intractable, Bush has created a situation in which dismissing the twisted old coot will create the accurate impression that the military now control the secretary’s office. No matter how thoroughly justified the change might be, and it is, that’s a precedent that no one should undertake lightly.
Add to that Bush’s historical reluctance to acknowledge error on his own behalf or that of his associates, and the chances that he’ll fire Rumsfeld or even accept his resignation seem slim. But this is, as they say, developing …
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Way to stick it to whatever’s being stuck here!
April 13th, 2006 at 3:02 pmPrecedent is only a concern for those that don’t have noble or compassionate intentions.
If one must draw upon the past to empower right action, right speech, right mind, or right livelihood then one will be hard pressed to grow beyond the limitations of the past.
Second guessing history before living today’s events undermines willingness to do the right thing.
If the right thing to do is ouster, then that should happen on the merits (or failings) of the circumstances. If the action is precedent setting, let the next event debate the effect of that measure.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:32 pmWhat a crock of crap by this Rich guy as to doing the right thing! Where did this GOP get his education at anyways? LSD U ! Give me a break! Sounds very eloquent when you remove all the BS off the top!
I’d literally eat a plate of crap myself if these dumb-ass GOPS could ever do anything right up there in WASH instead of just feeding us really educated and intelligent people a load of crap every day!
Seems like all they can do is constantly disgrace this country day by day with their otherwise stupid bumblings and more lies.
Hell, LBJ showed more brains in VIETNAM, (and he was wrong too btw - read McNamara’s book and gain some insight fool), then this idiot of a MONGER president we have screwing up this country and world peace in general. At least JOHNSON was smart enough to listen to his military as well as other cabinet advisers, and knew when to pull out of VIETNAM unlike these idiots we have up there in WASH right now!
DUMBSFELD doesn’t know his head from his ass, and as for brains you couldn’t get an IQ of 4 out of bushwa - cheney - rice or DUMBSFELD for that matter!! PERIOD!
What these idiots are doing to destroy MIDDLE EAST diplomacy will cost us dearly and take DECADES to repair now!!
Hell we minds well go into IRAN and kick some more NUCLEAR ass while we’re at it, as we already have our country’s BANKRUPTCY sitting over there right now, only draining more resources from our already deteriorating counties infrastructure!
Go tell that to all the CHARLEY and KATRINA hurricane victims still out there homeless why we should even be in IRAQNAM!
IDIOT!
April 13th, 2006 at 4:27 pmRich, like it or not, creating precedent has consequences, and like it or not, a White House bowing to pressure from the military creates a precedent. I don’t think there’s any doubt Rumsfeld needs to go, but the prospect of seeing him forced out by a group of generals, no matter how well-intentioned they are or how right they are, causes me some concern.
April 13th, 2006 at 5:47 pmYeah, Frank. You sound REEEEEAL intelligent.
April 14th, 2006 at 2:22 amSince Rumsfeld hasn’t done anything particularly calamitous in the past week or so, I think what the grumbling is *really* about is that the “nuclear option” is still being considered for use in Iran.
Unless I’m missing some *other* terrifying thing that just happened?
April 14th, 2006 at 10:35 amCurse you, masked bandit! Thras, I’m in the middle of writing a post on just that point.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:49 amGet real, had Rumsfeld been appointed by Kerry the Lost Unpresident (I feel your pain), you’d be fainting with praise for him. It’s all aboot your Bush hatred, not aboot Rumsfeld skills or lack thereof.
April 15th, 2006 at 10:28 amYeah, b, just like we rallied around Robert McNamara for his fine work with Vietnam. Oh, wait. But let’s assume you’re right, and that it’s pure, reflexive hatred: how do you explain away the Republican and military critics who are now saying the same things about Rumsfeld as his critics from the center and left have been for years? Ooooh, I’ll bet we’ve gotten to them, just as we’ve gotten to the 60+% of Americans who think Bush is incompetent and the war was a mistake.
We control your horizontal. We control your vertical …
April 15th, 2006 at 10:40 amFirst of all, bob go back to sleep. Or better yet go back to listening to Rush Lameburger!
As for KERRY ever appointing an idiot the likes of DUMBSFELD - I DON’T THINK SO!!!
Had KERRY been elected president, over this present day idiot bushwa, we by now would have (maybe almost) all our military boys and girls back home where they so much belong!!
Like the IRAQ PRIME MINISTER and many of our GENERALS have said over and over again as of recent months, when you have 20-30-50 civilian people being murdered almost on a daily basis you have a CLEAR and PRESENT CIVIL WAR, and not just an OCCUPATION by U.S. troops!
So lets get past the bushwa WMD screwup and sheer stupidity of this failed from the start bush regime and lets talk about something a dumbass like DUMBSFELD doesn’t seem to grasp even to today!!
Why are we still there? What the f*** are we even doing there today? And the big ? which is - When the f*** are we going to withdraw our troops so more of them don’t have to die needlessly? And I did say NEEDLESSLY being a VIETNAM era VET myself??
McNAMARA at least got it, and so too did LBJ finally, and that was VIETNAM in retrospect, so why can’t a dumbass like bush or DUMBSFELD get it?
Forget cheney as he is the most useless piece of shit we ever had for a VP yet!! I mean there are dumbass cowboys and then there are just plain dumbass cowboys!! There is NO MISSION to complete and there NEVER was one to start! This country no longer needs some dumbass cowboy hick from TX (with nothing but WAR & OIL between his empty headed ears) running this great nation in the ground.
Do I hate bush? You damn right I do!! The whole bush family from the beginning of time was nothing but a bunch of corrupt corporate and political liars, cheaters, and otherwise just plain bums, as in NIXON’S own words being one himself. Trace back their history and then go kiss bush’s ass!!!
NIXON was a SAINT, as compared to the corrupt dealings of this idiot bush and his clonies, and look what he got IMPEACHED on/for and then finally thrown out of office. I guess that just tells you where this country had headed to gutter wise! And they wanted to impeach CLINTON for getting a blowjob in the OVAL OFFICE! Give me a break!
But like a PRO GOP friend of mine, who works at the VA HOSPITAL near me, keeps telling me - BUSH DOESN’T CARE!! I tell him right back - YOU DON’T EITHER! Followed by - You voted for that dumbass - followed by - PEOPLE LOVED HITLER too! He has no comment to that!
So how is it then that this third world country/nation of ours can even stand behind an idiot like bushwa?
There’s dumb & dumber, but this goes way beyond dumber!
Stupid doesn’t even hold a candle to these GOP idiots in office today! I’m glad I can sleep at night (with my trusty GLOCK 23 nearby btw) knowing that I at least have some morals and values to get through the next day with, as opposed to this idiot bush who keeps screwing up worse and worse as each day goes by. And with NO ACCOUNTABILITY btw!!! I’m not waiting for these incompetent idiots in WASH to save my ass from harms way, as we the people have to save our own ass because this government can’t do it for us!
Maybe we need a NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST to wake up these dumbass people of this country before all is lost for good!?
Having said that here is my EASTER folly for you all to enjoy!
>>>>>>>>>>>
Hilarious Easter WMD scare!!
Days before the annual Easter egg hunt at the White House a WMD egg scare was announced via a secret memo that came from UNKNOWN sources!
Put in charge of the TERRORIST EGG THREAT follow-up and report to our absentee President was none other then Donald aka DUMBSFELD.
He immediately dropped everything he was doing in IRAQNAM, whatever that is btw, and took charge of the TERRORIST EGG THREAT ALERT. Mobilizing thousands of SECRET SERVICE AGENTS, Local Police, and Special Forces troops, an immediate search of the White House grounds was commenced!
Thousands of the multi-colored potentially deadly chemical or biological laden eggs were found all over the White House grounds. They were all gathered up and taken to a secret Federal Lab, funded by HALIBURTON CORP btw, for further examination.
Because time was of the essence here in finding out if any or all of the eggs were indeed a real TERRORIST THREAT, much like that of IRAQNAM’S supposed WMD’S that never were found btw, the eggs were all immediately broken open in haste!
YOKES were flying everywhere to everyone’s amazement , as lab experts were expecting to see hard boiled egg whites inside!
Donald DUMBSFELD, hearing of the results, immediately rushed over to the lab to oversee the mess there. When asked why he authorized all this expensive lab investigation over a bunch of none other then ordinary Easter eggs, he was left speechless! He was later heard saying, “I guess the yoke was on me huh?”.
It would be later learned that all the eggs were placed there by a company contracted through none other then HALIBURTON CORP, or Dick Cheney’s own company he makes millions from! Great security scare btw! Glad to see my Easter tax dollars are being spent wisely….
Doesn’t it always seem that way with these bungling Easter Funnies up there in WASH?
Btw, the President paid in a little over $100,000 in taxes this 2006 tax year based on a salary of a little over $700,000. In contrast Dick Cheney paid in over a MILLION in taxes based on a reported income 10 times that of the President. Makes you wonder who’s running this country doesn’t it?
Happy Easter folks……
April 15th, 2006 at 12:03 pmA Final Note (For Now) on the Generals and That Awful Movie
Certainly, generals and admirals are traditionally given more leeway to publicly assess war policies than is given to those in lower ranks. But with that broader, though limited, discretion comes the responsibility not to be seen to in any way…
April 19th, 2006 at 6:35 am