Rumsfeld Retirement Rumor
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The NewsRumors of Rumsfeld’s retirement appear to be just that — rumors …
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the craftsman of U.S. Iraq war strategy and a magnet for criticism, said on Thursday he had no plans to retire from the post more than 2-1/2 years into the conflict.
“Those reports have been flying around since about four months after I assumed my post in 2001,” Rumsfeld, 73, told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about a New York Daily News report that White House officials are telling associates they expect him to quit early next year.
“I have no plans to retire,” added Rumsfeld, who has been criticized over the conduct of the Iraq and the treatment of detainees in U.S. military custody.
Yes, the criticism leveled against Rumsfeld has been considerable over the duration of the Iraq War – although over the past six months he has seemed to keep a decidedly lower profile.
Well, Rummy has made a definitive stance – I’m staying through the term.
Rumsfeld has been criticized for the conduct of the war, with some prominent Democrats including Massachusetts senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry demanding his resignation. Rumsfeld also has had frosty relations even with fellow Republicans in Congress.
A combative former collegiate wrestler and Navy fighter pilot, Rumsfeld has established himself as the most powerful Pentagon chief since Vietnam War era defense secretary Robert McNamara.
Interesting the Vietnam era reference …
Is it just me or does that appear to be just a little bit of slant coming through in the reporting?
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December 9th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
He has been a magnet, especially ever since Abu Ghraib. And since he was the one who led us into Iraq with a deeply flawed plan, and since he was the architect of the neo-cons strategy, people have continually called for his dismissal. Even Callimachus thinks he should get his gold watch. I do too since I believe that’s one of the few ways Bush will regain any credibility.
So yeah, slanted in what way?
December 9th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Even Callimachus thinks he should get his gold watch. I do too since I believe that’s one of the few ways Bush will regain any credibility.
Me too (in fact it would be especially fitting if the watch didn’t actually work, but is at least right twice a day), although ditching Rumsfeld won’t be enough by itself to help President Bush much on the credibility matter.
It seems to me that Bush has known from Day One that he’s not the sharpest stick in the bundle, and so he has been content to delegate as much of his presidential responsibilities as he can, taking the lead only when he believes he absolutely has to. The pitfalls of this approach, of course, are that (1) first you have to be sure that your delegate can actually do the job better than you, and (2) delegation is no substitute for strong leadership. It doesn’t take a flaming liberal to see that Bush has come up short on both of these counts.
Now, in fairness to Bush and Rumsfeld, it should be kept in mind that both men took office before 9/11/2001 and have had to learn their wartime roles more or less on the fly. I wonder whether improvement may not be just a matter of bringing in a new administration (Dem or GOP) in 2008 that isn’t necessarily bound by old approaches to warfare and intelligence-gathering left over from the Cold War, or even from the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of this war?
December 10th, 2005 at 2:57 am
Slanted, in what way? Well, the Vietnam meme obviously. The implication of saying the ‘most powerful since MacNamara’ is to set up the parallel with Vietnam – implying that the end result will be the same. If I were editing this reporter’s piece I would say: all wartime Sec Defs are powerful – what’s your point?
I would see the rumors of Rumsfeld’s retirement as a sub plot in the current wave of declaring the war in Iraq a failure. For those who believe it is a failure it follows that he should go. Its all part of a coherent picture. There is another coherent picture which is that we are actually winning which can be gotten from reading soldier’s blogs, Iraqi blogs, and even listening to Bush’s speeches. Or Joe Lieberman. But it isn’t up to any of us; it is up to the Iraqi people. The Iraqi elections and the determination of the new Iraqi government to reduce the terrorists will decide matters. Personally I hope Rumsfeld stays the course and gets whatever mix of credit or blame he has earned.
That said I think there are some parallels with MacNamara. For example, both are CEOs who brought their business experience to running the military. MacNamara certainly imposed the numbers driven techniques that had worked at Ford in a way that didn’t in war. Rumsfeld’s most embarrassing mistake, Abu Ghraib, seems to me also to be a classic managerial mistake. He reduced the demarcation between two job categories – guard and interrogator – and found out that it didn’t increase productivity as it often does in the business world.
As someone who has followed both wars with intense interest what strikes me as a major difference in both the overall conduct of the two wars in general and their Secretaries of defense in particular is the speed with which we have responded to mistakes and changed course in the Iraq conflict. Watching Vietnam was an agony – the same things not working year after year. I first marched against the war in 1962. Nixon didn’t try Vietnamization until 1969. Rumsfeld and the administration announced Iraqization in less than a year and handed over power to an interim government with a speed that astonished me. I believe this speed has nothing to do with party or politics or the competence of Secretary Rumsfeld, but is direct result of the lessons learned in the Vietnam conflict.
December 10th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Rumsfeld is certainly the worst SecDef since McNamara.
I don’t think Abu Ghraib was his biggest error — though it sure does rank right up there. I think his fundamental error was not understanding that using the Army as a scalpel would work for knocking off the backward and hollow Iraqi force, but would not be appropriate for an occupation. When we lacked the force and the will to end the looting we signalled a new era of lawlessness — precisely the opposite of the message we wanted to send.
The looters all but annihilated what was left of the Iraqi economy, not a good start to things. Rumsfeld followed up by denying we had a problem, then pretending the problem was only minor, and responding with discredited Vietnam era tactics. Belatedly we’ve admitted we have a problem and we’ve begun to switch to “take and garrison” tactics. I’d give Rumsfeld credit for adapting, but remember that in Vietnam we were doing it all for the first time, and in Iraq we had every reason to know better. The US Army teaches counterinsurgency warfare now, they didn’t in 1964.
Rumsfeld has been a disaster. And if things are going a bit better now (and that could be very ephemeral) it may be because the balance of policy power has been shifted away from our incompetent SecDef and moved toward our seemingly more capable Secretary of State.
December 11th, 2005 at 2:34 am
To Mike Reynolds
I want to write this response in the Donklephant spirit – agreeing and disagreeing rather than just arguing.
I agree that the biggest mistake(as opposed to the most embarrassing) was letting the occupation get out of control. I don’t think we know yet exactly how it happened but the looting must have been an important factor. Also, I thought at the time that we should have paid the demonstrating Iraqi army members and put them to work – even if it was having them return to barracks and march up and down. If you read Chief Wiggles’ blog during this time you would have heard how we kept incarcerated the Iraqi officers who surrendered as per our broadcast instructions, and let the ones who ignored those instructions return home unmolested. Wiggles’ guys were champing at the bit to help rebuild Iraq – at least some of the others were building the insurgency. A lot of these errors will sheet home to Rumsfeld, but I don’t think history will necessarily judge Rumsfeld as a disaster precisely because he reacted to things going wrong and not necessarily belatedly – given the slowness with which that the military usually adapts. My sense is that he will get a mixed report card and that he is better than you think he is, but time will tell.
I would point out that the US did teach counter insurgency in 1964 in the army. Counterinsurgency was an interest of JFK’s and the Green Berets were a direct result. It was also very much a current topic in the military at that time, but I agree we should and do know more about it now. I think the shift in tactics against the insurgency was reasonably well executed. First Fallujha showed that we didn’t fully know what we were up against -it was a tentative and unsuccessful attempt to temper raw force with a political solution. It made it clear that nothing less than raw force was needed. (I think it shows the importance of US domestic politics that Bush waited until after the election before reducing Fallujha.)
By second Fallujha we showed we could take on Mujahideen in serious urban combat and win. We learned how from what happened to the Russian army in Grozny and what didn’t happen to the Israeli army in Jenin. We then moved up the rivers with search and destroy missions all the way to the border. We are currently following that up with clear and hold operations now that we have Iraqi troops to do most of the holding. That’s good counterinsurgency clearly based on the lessons of Vietnam.
But I don’t think the river war will be the most important historically. It will be first and second Najaf. That is when I believe the war was won and won because we defeated the Iranian model. The great danger in Iraq has always been empowering the majority Shia and then seeing them vote for an Iranian style Islamic Republic. A super Shia state with nukes – now that’s a disaster. We may get something we are not happy with in a Shia led Iraqi government but what happened in Najaf showed that Sistani and the Shia establishment were not angling for an Islamic Republic and were willing to let the US army put paid to Sadr. I believe the victories in Najaf will redound to Rumsfeld’s credit. It was a delicate task brilliantly executed – the use of overwhelming force in the most difficult cultural and political circumstances. Things could still go wrong, but unless they do I think Rumsfeld will be come out with plenty of lumps but some with some real credit too.