April 19, 2006
IT'S JUST BUREAUCRATS DEFENDING THEIR INSTITUTION:
Rumsfeld says foes fear change (Rowan Scarborough, 4/19/06, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that retired generals' calls for his resignation are rooted in opposition to his push to streamline and restructure the Army.
In his first press conference since the six retired generals went public and since President Bush gave him a full vote of confidence Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld did not mention Iraq war planning or the war itself while discussing why some in the military establishment have called on him to quit. Instead, he talked about his other main objective: transformation for 21st-century threats.
"Change is difficult," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "It also happens to be urgently necessary. Transforming this department is important."
Even by the low standards of the punditocracy this has been a poorly analyzed kerfuffle. They're all focussed on Iraq and firing Mr. Rumsfeld as a way to make amends for mistakes there, but the WoT is just a sideshow and the President needs a bureaucratic infighter like Rummy to effect the transformation of the military that is his primary mission. It's worth keeping in mind that the worst mistakes we made in Iraq were a function of still having a Cold War military.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 19, 2006 8:12 AM
Not trying to make "Best of the Web" with that kerfuffle, are you? ;)
Posted by: Buttercup at April 19, 2006 9:15 AMWe were kerfuffling when he was in short pants:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2002/09/that_channels_parentlocked_in_1.html
Posted by: oj at April 19, 2006 9:23 AMPoorly analyzed?
What's to analyze?
This latest "scandal" was cooked up by the DNC and disseminated by their servants at the NYT specially for the Easter recess.
no need top analyze a political hatchet job designed to further the interests of the party you support.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at April 19, 2006 11:03 AMJim:
No, it wasn't. The professional military wants to preserve the status quo and W and Rummy aren't going to.
Posted by: oj at April 19, 2006 11:08 AMTrue enough, but the professional military didn't coordinate this press campaign and put it on the front page of the NYT.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at April 19, 2006 11:51 AMOf course they did. Journalists are just tools.
Posted by: oj at April 19, 2006 11:57 AMI am still waiting for an explanation of what these "mistakes" in Iraq might have been.
Militarily, the operation was historically brilliant, eclipsing Lee and Jackson, Guderian and Rommel.
Politically, no less so: if it had not been started quickly it may never have been started at all. Waiting for preparations to be perfect can mean waiting too long for success--think of Kursk. Delay would have given time for the political opposition, foreign and domestic, to mobilize. It had to be done quickly.
We made a decision, the right one by any reckoning, that Iraq was to be liberated as an occupied country rather than crushed as an enemy. Given the irrational structure of Iraq as a melange of antagonistic factions, "insurgency" was inevitable.
Criticism of debaathification is fatuous. The criminal organization we had just taken down had maintained itself through the dominance of the Sunni minority, and that system had to be eliminated.
The alternative was not to have gone at all, to have left Saddam Hussein in power.
Say, then, what was the mistake?
Posted by: Lou Gots at April 19, 2006 1:43 PMFailure to work through Ayatollah Sistani ahead of time to set up a transitional authority so we could withdraw immediately.
Posted by: oj at April 19, 2006 1:55 PMSome of these generals are just mad because they have found Rumsfeld to be a 'foe' they cannot out-manouver (or out-wait). Plus, they may have decided to angle for position in a coming Democratic administration. But that is idiotic - right now, they are pretty much in Wesley Clark territory. As for "strategy", Lou is basically correct. OJ is probably right on his point about Sistani - my main disagreement would be that we haven't caused enough grief in Syria (which we should have started doing in May 2003).
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 20, 2006 12:45 AM