On Rumsfeld, Generals, and Washington

[Annie]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=110008284

THE WESTERN FRONT

Rage at Don
The war on Rumsfeld is really a bureaucratic turf battle.

BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, April 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

"I think Director [of National Intelligence John] Negroponte has battles to fight within the bureaucracy, and particularly with the Department of Defense. DOD is refusing to recognize that the director of national intelligence is in charge of the intelligence community."--Sen. Susan Collins

On Sept. 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a town hall meeting at the Pentagon and identified what he saw as the gravest threat to national security: the Pentagon's own bureaucracy. "With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk," he said. He may have underestimated both the size and tenacity of this foe.

In the opening pages of their new book about the Iraq war, "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor quote the Sept. 10 speech to frame the battle that has raged inside the Pentagon for five years. As the nation has weathered the most deadly terrorist attack on its soil in history, fought a global war on terror and liberated two countries, there has been a battle inside the Pentagon over the size, organization and weaponry of the U.S. military. And that battle has only intensified as the bureaucracy that Mr. Rumsfeld chastised for being stuck in a Cold War mindset has picked up allies in Congress, the military and in some quarters of the administration. It is this coalition that is now pushing for Mr. Rumsfeld to be fired.

But it's not just the defense secretary's head the former generals, anonymous leakers and senators are after. This is a classic Washington turf and policy war. In the balance is the nation's ability to fight the war on terror and confront other threats around the globe. One of the more significant theaters of this war has been waged in the intelligence community. Two years ago at the behest of the 9/11 Commission, Congress created the director of national intelligence to sit atop the CIA, FBI and other intelligence gathering agencies. In theory the DNI would improve the nation's ability to collect, analyze and disseminate information about national security threats. In this process Congress was cheered on by the Bush administration's normal critics in the media.

Initially the Bush administration resisted creating the new post, but as the 2004 presidential election approached Mr. Bush came out in support of it. A few members of Congress, however, put the brakes on for a few weeks. They included Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, a relatively new arrival on Capitol Hill, who as a former Marine helicopter pilot had seen the need for good intelligence firsthand while carrying the "nuclear football" for President Reagan and while serving in Somalia in the 1990s. Before the legislation creating the new layer of bureaucracy was sent to the president to be signed into law shortly after the election, these few holdouts in the House won a critical battle for the military. They ensured that the Pentagon would not lose its ability to gather and analyze intelligence independently to support soldiers in harms way.

That victory, however, always depended on vigorous civilian control over a Pentagon that would rather not make enemies on Capitol Hill. That leadership starts with the defense secretary and also requires support from a president who understands that it's vital for the Pentagon to control its own intelligence assets. Sen. Collins, who led the fight in Congress against Reps. Hunter and Kline, has never accepted the powerful but limited role for the DNI. Instead she has continued to insist that Mr. Negroponte push to expand his mandate and gain total dominance over the intelligence community. This has come even as the New York Times and Washington Post have printed articles recently pointing out that the DNI has turned out to be--surprise, surprise--ineffective at creating more-accurate intelligence or even in turning out competing analysis that then filters up to policy makers. If anything, the creation of the DNI has made it less likely that members of Congress will receive anything but a consensus view from the intelligence community.

A recent House Intelligence Committee report puts its finger on the problem by saying the DNI is in danger of becoming "less an intended 'orchestration mechanism,' and more another layer of large, unintended and unnecessary bureaucracy." The committee is threatening to cut Mr. Negroponte's funding unless he comes up with a plan for reforming the intelligence community. But short of abolishing his own position, it's hard to see how that is possible.

It is in this context that we can view the criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld intensifying over the past year. The underlying theme from the handful of retired generals who have spoken out against the defense secretary to the critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere is that Mr. Rumsfeld has been too forceful a leader at the Pentagon. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, wants to go so far as to hold a symbolic "no-confidence vote" on the defense secretary. "Let the Senate go on the record," he told reporters last week.

Unable to persuade the president from invading Iraq or to stop him from pushing for a more flexible military with an expanded role around the world, it seems the critics are now trying to throw sand in the gears of the military machine in the hope that it will grind to a halt. It's hard to see how this serves the national interest.

 

[Annie]

Again, this will be something interesting to watch how the Democrats work in the near future:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/007024.html

November 10, 2006
A "Referendum on Iraq" (Part Two: So Long, and thanks for all the Fish)
Greyhawk

If the 2006 U.S. elections were a "referendum on Iraq" - who won? "The Democrats" of course - that's an easy answer. But here we've always asked the tough questions, and the full answer to that one isn't so obvious. This is part two in a series - part one is here. More will follow
*****

Last April a group of six retired generals made headlines with a call for the dismissal of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Other retired senior officers quickly countered with endorsements of the Secretary - but while their positions were subsequently ignored, in the months that followed few stories about any aspect of Iraq would lack a quote from one of the "gang of six".

But last April, even as the original six generals explained that their efforts were independent and uncoordinated, and expressed their surprise that their fellow retired leaders had chosen the same moment to express their own misgivings, Senator Hillary Clinton called for Senate committee Hearings:

The Senate Armed Services Committee will vote on a request by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to take testimony from six retired generals who have called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal, the panel's chairman said.​

That request was voted down. But working quickly in response, Senate Democrats were able to arrange unnofficial hearings a mere five months later - just a few weeks before the U.S. elections:

Shunned by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Batiste and two other retired officers spoke before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a rump group with little legislative clout but access to a proper Senate hearing room. And Batiste made up for lost time.

"Donald Rumsfeld is not a competent wartime leader," said Batiste, wearing a pinstripe suit, calling himself a "lifelong Republican" and bearing a slight resemblance to Oliver North. "He surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates who do not grasp the importance of the principles of war, the complexities of Iraq or the human dimension of warfare. . . . Bottom line: His plan allowed the insurgency to take root and metastasize to where it is today."

Further, Batiste charged, Rumsfeld "reduced force levels to unacceptable levels, micromanaged the war" and created an environment where U.S. troops "are doing unconscionable things."
​

Strangely enough, although the anti-Rumsfeld generals had been frequently quoted over the intervening months, and the elections were looming large on the American calendar, the "show trial" received scant notice in the American media.

One likely reason? The generals were able to give more specific information regarding what they would do differently than Secretary Rumsfeld - and those actions were not to the liking of their assumed supporters:

...Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.

"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.
​

Go back and read the first links I've provided above and you'll discover - if you didn't know already - that the generals' criticism of Donald Rumsfeld was little more than the sort of inter-service competition for defense funds that has defined the upper levels of the Pentagon for years (and that Rumsfeld tried to eliminate). While this year's rhetoric admittedly rose to new and desperate levels, the underlying argument was perhaps thinner than most previous "peace time" funding debates. The eternal reality is that all services could use more money - the Air Force is currently attempting to slash 40,000 active duty members from it's pay rolls to enable funding of new systems - even as retired Army generals insist that their service is being short changed in favor of another.

Although getting Rumsfeld out of the picture was only step one, media coverage of the demands of those particular retired generals will probably vanish now that half their goals have been achieved - the remaining steps of the plan are an embarrassment to those who previously offered a large platform and amplification system for their call to arms.

But a "new direction" has been promised, and now it must be found. So Democrats are rapidly seeking a voice to fill the silence left now that "their" generals have been sent home with "mission accomplished". Here's one contender:

George McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that he will meet with more than 60 members of Congress next week to recommend a strategy to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by June.

If Democrats don't take steps to end the war in Iraq soon, they won't be in power very long, McGovern told reporters before a speech at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
​

McGovern hints that he's talked to some other retired flag officers while researching a new book (on sale now for less than 10 bucks a copy - get yours today):

McGovern's plan - as written in his new book, "Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now" - also calls for the United States to remove hired mercenaries from the region, push for the removal of British troops and establish a temporary transitional force, similar to police, made up of Muslims from the region.

"I've talked with a lot of senior officers - generals and admirals - in preparation for this book, that say this war can't be won, that the problems now are not military problems," McGovern told reporters. "There isn't going to be any decisive victory in Iraq."
​

Perhaps not what the "gang of six" had in mind, but their part in the play is over. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Posted by Greyhawk at 01:49 PM

 

[dilloduck]

Again, this will be something interesting to watch how the Democrats work in the near future:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/007024.html

Good article---I think of this often when I here the polls regarding how Bush is handling the war. If a poll was taken and the question posed was " Do you think the president should send in an overwhelming amount of troops and war machines into Iraq as a method of achieving a quick and decisive end to to the war" I bet the numbers would expose something other than an America who wants to surrender and go home.