|
Another general joins ranks opposing Rumsfeld - calls for resignation
|
View this Thread in Original format
| josh4 |
| quote: | Another general joins ranks opposing Rumsfeld
Defense secretary 'carries too much baggage,' Swannack says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The commander who led the elite 82nd Airborne Division during its mission in Iraq has joined the chorus of retired generals calling on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to leave the Pentagon.
"I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him," retired Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack told CNN's Barbara Starr on Thursday.
Swannack is the second general who served in Iraq under Rumsfeld to call for him to resign. (Watch as more retired generals join chorus against Rumsfeld -- 1:29)
Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste -- who led the 1st Infantry Division in northern Iraq in 2004-2005 -- called for Rumsfeld's resignation during an interview Wednesday on CNN.
He also suggested other changes among the top brass at the Pentagon.
"I think we need senior military leaders who understand the principles of war and apply them ruthlessly, and when the time comes, they need to call it like it is," he told CNN.
Former U.S. Central Command chief Anthony Zinni, former Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold also have called for Rumsfeld to step down.
Swannack is critical of Rumsfeld's management style.
"Specifically, I feel he has micromanaged the generals who are leading our forces there," Swannack said in the telephone interview.
"And I believe he has culpability associated with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and, so, rather than admitting these mistakes, he continually justifies them to the press ... and that really disallows him from moving our strategy forward."
Swannack, who served more than 30 years in the Army, said part of the problem at the Pentagon is Rumsfeld's system of promoting senior leaders.
"If you understand what Secretary Rumsfeld has done in his time in the Pentagon, he personally is the one who selects the three-star generals to go forward to the president for the Senate to confirm."
Swannack also criticized the way the war was being run before he retired.
In May 2004, while still on active duty, Swannack told the Washington Post that he thought the United States was losing strategically in Iraq.
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITIC...feld/index.html |
Its really ironic he says that, because thats exactly what the Administration would like to believe it does. |
|
|
| deprivation |
This time Bush should accept Rumsfeld's resignation. We don't need Rummy to f*ck up Iran like he did Iraq. One of Bush's weaknesses is his loyalty to his employees. I think its great to support your employee in any situation, but at some point you have to discipline or remove them from their duties.
Rummy's big evaulation is how things went in Iraq and we all know things have went badly. Condi Rice even admitted there were thousands(used figuratively) of tactical errors committed.
I recall in history class that Lincoln fired lots of generals to get to Grant during the civil war.
With all the Generals retiring and all the generals supposedly active in secret denouncing Rumsfeld, a change is needed. |
|
|
| Q5echo |
| quote: | | Imagine that, as we crossed the Rhine, retired World War II officers were still harping, in March, 1945, about who was responsible months during Operation Cobra for the accidental B-17 bombing, killing, and wounding of hundreds of American soldiers and the death of Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair; or, in the midst of Matthew Ridgeway's Korean counteroffensives, we were still bickering over MacArthur's disastrous intelligence lapses about Chinese intervention that caused thousands of casualties. Did the opponents of daylight bombing over Europe in 1943 still damn the theories of old Billy Mitchell, or press on to find a way to hit Nazi Germany hard by late 1944? |
i don't know. just something to think about. |
|
|
| shaolin_Z |
| Resignation isn't good enough, send Rummy to the International War Crimes Court. |
|
|
| hardcore trancer |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Resignation isn't good enough, send Rummy to the International War Crimes Court. |
He should be sent to prison for life with Bush. |
|
|
| Alex |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
He should be sent to prison for life with Bush. |
Sadly I agree with Mr. Hardcore Trancer here.
Then again, international anything is a sham, international court included. Politics 101 people, countries live in Anarchy with one another, international agreements only exist when they suit a country, that's why the USA is against more reforms in this area. (Same thing with China).
Hate to sound negative or whatever, but international anything should start with "Bull ", like the UN. "The Bull United Nations". Or if you want, the United Nations of Bull".
Rummy and Bush will never be tried for the 30,000+ deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, and no one can force them, unless someone wants to go to war with the US of A, as sad as it is, the USA can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, until someone makes them their bitch... Which will probably be in about 50 years. Until then we all gotta sit back and watch the USA and other powerful countries do what they want and impose themselves on less powerful ones. :(
That being said, in a lot of cases, I think the west imposing itself on countries isn't such a bad thing, unless the people truly DO NOT want it. |
|
|
| Shakka |
| It's no secret the Army doesn't care for Rummy. Rummy wants to create a leaner, meaner, more technologically developed army which no-doubt puts him in the hot seat during the transition. |
|
|
| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
It's no secret the Army doesn't care for Rummy. Rummy wants to create a leaner, meaner, more technologically developed army which no-doubt puts him in the hot seat during the transition. |
Yeah, which involves indiscriminate torture, abhorrent human rights violations, and a complete disregard for the Geneva Convention. Gee, there must be something terribly wrong with the mentality of those of us who disapprove of it. :rolleyes: |
|
|
| Marc Summers |
| quote: | Originally posted by hardcore trancer
He should be sent to prison for life with Bush. |
Explain. |
|
|
| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Marc Summers
Explain. |
Good luck...:toothless |
|
|
| Shakka |
Interesting and thoughtful comments from a 3-Star Marine General who was 2nd in command to Tommy Franks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/o....html?th&emc=th
| quote: | April 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
A General Misunderstanding
By MICHAEL DeLONG
Tampa, Fla.
AS the No. 2 general at United States Central Command from the Sept. 11 attacks through the Iraq war, I was the daily "answer man" to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I briefed him twice a day; few people had as much interaction with him as I did during those two years. In light of the recent calls for his resignation by several retired generals, I would like to set the record straight on what he was really like to work with.
When I was at Centcom, the people who needed to have access to Secretary Rumsfeld got it, and he carefully listened to our arguments. That is not to say that he is not tough in terms of his convictions (he is) or that he will make it easy on you (he will not). If you approach him unprepared, or if you don't have the full courage of your convictions, he will not give you the time of day.
Mr. Rumsfeld does not give in easily in disagreements, either, and he will always force you to argue your point thoroughly. This can be tough for some people to deal with. I witnessed many heated but professional conversations between my immediate commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, and Mr. Rumsfeld — but the secretary always deferred to the general on war-fighting issues.
Ultimately, I believe that a tough defense secretary makes commanders tougher in their convictions. Was Donald Rumsfeld a micromanager? Yes. Did he want to be involved in all of the decisions? Yes. But Mr. Rumsfeld never told people in the field what to do. It all went through General Franks.
Mr. Rumsfeld did not like waste, which caused some grumbling among the military leadership even before 9/11. He knew that many of the operational plans we had on the books dated back to the 1990's (some even to the late 80's), and he wanted them updated for an era of a more streamlined, technological force. He asked us all: "Can we do it better, and can we do it with fewer people?"
Sometimes General Franks and I answered yes, other times we answered no. When we said no, there was a discussion; but when we told him what we truly needed, we got it. I never saw him endangering troops by insisting on replacing manpower with technology. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, we always got what we, the commanders, thought we needed.
This is why the much-repeated claims that Mr. Rumsfeld didn't "give us enough troops" in Iraq ring hollow. First, such criticisms ignore that the agreed-upon plan was for a lightning operation into Baghdad. In addition, logistically it would have been well nigh impossible to bring many more soldiers through the bottleneck in Kuwait. And doing so would have carried its own risk: you cannot sustain a fighting force of 300,000 or 500,000 men for long, and it would have left us with few reserves, putting our troops at risk in other parts of the world. Given our plan, we thought we had the right number of troops to accomplish our mission.
The outcome and ramifications of a war, however, are impossible to predict. Saddam Hussein had twice opened his jails, flooding the streets with criminals. The Iraqi police walked out of their uniforms in the face of the invasion, compounding domestic chaos. We did not expect these developments.
We also — collectively — made some decisions in the wake of the war that could have been better. We banned the entire Baath Party, which ended up slowing reconstruction (we should probably have banned only high-level officials); we dissolved the entire Iraqi Army (we probably should have retained a small cadre help to rebuild it more quickly). We relied too much on the supposed expertise of the Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi who assured us that once Saddam Hussein was gone, Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds would unite in harmony.
But that doesn't mean that a "What's next?" plan didn't exist. It did; it was known as Phase IV of the overall operation. General Franks drafted it and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Treasury Department and all members of the Cabinet had input. It was thoroughly "war-gamed" by the Joint Chiefs.
Thus, for distinguished officers to step forward and, in retrospect, pin blame on one person is wrong. And when they do so in a time of war, the rest of the world watches.
Michael DeLong, a retired Marine lieutenant general, is the author, with Noah Lukeman, of "Inside Centcom: The Unvarnished Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."
|
|
|
|
| Q5echo |
Lt. Gen (ret) John Jumper said some similar things about Rumsfeld on Anderson Cooper 360. He was USAF chief of staff 01-05'
Gen. Myers likes him too. |
|
|
|
|
