General Paul Eaton’s scathing op-ed in The New York Times takes aim squarely at Donald Rumsfeld. The first three paragraphs set the tone for a verbal assault on the Defense Secretary:
DURING World War II, American soldiers en route to Britain before D-Day were given a pamphlet on how to behave while awaiting the invasion. The most important quote in it was this: "It is impolite to criticize your host; it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies."
By that rule, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces. First, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called "old Europe" has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in Iraq than necessary. Second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input.
In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.
In labeling Mr. Rumsfeld as "incompetent", General Eaton, in one stroke, dismisses Mr. Rumsfeld as unqualified to lead the armed forces. That is a very serious charge, and if in fact, our senior commanders share this view, Mr. Rumsfeld would best serve the country by stepping down.
General Eaton also makes very clear how ill prepared we were for the post-war (Phase IV) part of the invasion. This is a familiar charge, vehemently denied by the Administration, which is now adding to the growing chorus coming from our retired senior officers. The General also charges that the invasion and its aftermath were micro-managed from Washington by what he termed the "8,000-mile screwdriver". Apparently, the lessons of Vietnam have been overlooked.
The General further charges that the military was sent in under-manned and under-equipped. In other words, from the very beginning of the invasion, we have left our military in dire straits.
Apparently the message from the military senior staff wasn’t getting through to Washington then and is not getting through now. I suspect the message left the military fine but no one was listening at the other end. Not surprising, given Vice President Cheney’s remarkable defense of the patently false today:
On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney did not express any regret for predicting in the days before the invasion that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators or his assessment 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes." On the contrary, he said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."
There is a stunning disconnect here between those statements and what has actually transpired over the last three years. The President today kept up the positive spin without mentioning the difficulties:
President Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war Sunday by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence that rages three years after he ordered an invasion.
The president didn’t utter the word "war."
In their effort to convince us that all is well, the Administration is losing us, the military and the war in Iraq. It is time to stop spinning and start listening to the best advice of our generals, our experts on the region, and others to get us out of the morass we are sinking into.
Thank God our courageous military is finally standing up to the bush nazis.
I support these Generals completely.
I don’t think that the civilian leader of the DoD should serve at the pleasure of the generals.
That would be a military-dictatorship, but you leftists dig that kind of thing….
It was primarily Army generals who have been crapping on him ‘cuz Rumsfeld has seriously crapped on the Army.
It needed to be crapped on–the Army was organizationally a mess since the early nineties. I was in it. I still am….