Should Rummy Retire>

[saif]

.. Very surprising that this hasn't been posted as at least a subject of interest... Should Rummy retire or perhaps should Bush let him go (which I truly don't see happening), I do believe though that he sure has earned some very negative marks in this campaign and even leading uop to it. He is the one who is ultimately at charge in reguards to planning and preperation, not to mention execution.. He is the one 'ultimately' responsible for every substantial lack of judgement on the battlefield. The culture of washington far differs from that of military and ops. You must as well take thought to this thought as well, 'he has been active for quite some time, perhaps it is time for a 'fresh' look into the entanglement we face now in Iraq, as well as Afghan., How could the United States not take the nuclear option if Iran swelled up giving more motivation for the insurgents that are placed all over the world? Far fetched perhaps.. but sometimes the absurd can represent real facts.

[Matt W]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4908948.stm

Pressure is growing on US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with more retired generals calling for him to resign over the Iraq war. The White House has said it is happy with the way Mr Rumsfeld is handling his job and the situation in Iraq. But the backing comes as the number of retired generals calling for him to be replaced has risen to six. It is being described as a rebellion led by those who know Mr Rumsfeld's handling of the war from the inside. The two most recent generals to voice their unease about Mr Rumsfeld's handling of the war are retired army Maj Gen John Riggs and retired Maj Gen Charles H Swannack Jr. In a radio interview Maj Gen Riggs, a former division commander, said it was time for Mr Rumsfeld to go because he fostered an atmosphere of "arrogance" among the Pentagon's top civilian leadership.

[Milton Bradley]

Rumsfeld claims he never heard any of these critiques when the Generals were still in active duty, and only hears it now that they have retired.


Am I the only one who thinks any official critique of Rummy was never going to reach him because he didn't want those criticisms to reach him?


Thoe only reason he hears these things now is that Rumsfeld can't squelch the entire media like he could the Generals below him on active duty. I think Rumsfeld has proven he is not up the task of being a military commander, and that these critisisms are just, and correct.


The fact that you are not hearing this until now speaks of the standard operating proceedure of this administration, and Rumsfeld fits right in this bunch of crooks. They doesn't want anybody looking over their shoulder, or critiquing their work, and for good reasons, they're crooks with an agenda, and thery can't have people finding out what that might be.

[RickSp]

I like Fred Kaplan's suggestion in Slate:

It's an odd thought, but a military coup in this country right now would probably have a moderating influence.

The sad truth is that the Bush administration has made it clear that any general who steps out of line to tell the truth will lose his stars. They made that clear by kicking Gen. Eric Shinseki, the ex-Army chief of staff, to the curb when he dared suggest that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed in Iraq.

Now we have retired generals who can't take it anymore, who are standing up to speak truth to power while the rest of the officer corps largely agrees while them but are afraid for their jobs.

It is startling to hear, in private conversations, how widely and deeply the U.S. officer corps despises this secretary of defense. The joke in some Pentagon circles is that if Rumsfeld were meeting with the service chiefs and commanders and a group of terrorists barged into the room and kidnapped him, not a single general would lift a finger to help him.

The Revolt Against Rumsfeld

[Osborn F Enready]

I think Rummy and Bush should be tried for violations of the Constitution.

I think the citizens should pursue the life imprisonment, confiscation of their funds to help repay the BILLIONS of dollars in damages they have caused.

[bishop]

i support publicly hanging virtually every member of the administration, so yes, at the very least rumsfeld should retire.

[PatrickHenry]

Yeah, Rumsfeld should retire on his Cerberus holdings:
http://btpholdings.blogspot.com/2005...s_archive.html

If anyone ever had any question as to why Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been such a major figure inside the Bush administration advancing the interests of the neo-conservative network, the answer to the mystery may have finally been resolved. It’s actually been quite profitable for the U.S. defense secretary. Rumsfeld — along with former Vice President Dan Quayle — has ties to Cerberus Global Investments, a New York-based holding company which, just last month, purchased the Israeli government’s interest in Bank Leumi, the second largest bank in Israel. The revelation came in the Nov. 15 issue of the influential Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, which reported that, at least as far back as 2001, Rumsfeld was an investor in the company, citing a report that appeared in the Oct. 3, 2005, issue of Business Week, based on financial disclosure forms that Rumsfeld was required to file under federal ethics laws. That Business Week report went so far as to describe Cerberus as being “bigger” than even such well-known business giants as McDonald’s, 3M, Coca-Cola and Cisco Systems, pointing out that Cerberus controls some 226 Burger King restaurants, the National and Alamo car-rental chains, building products maker Formica Corp. and the old Warner Hollywood Studios. What is of particular interest regarding Rumsfeld’s Cerberus investments (vis a vis his insistent demand that the United States invade Iraq and occupy the country, as it does today) is that Business Week asserted that Cerberus has also “set up military base camps in Iraq.”

[underbear1]

I personally would like that moron not controlling the largest armed forces on the planet,YESTERDAY, since he is clearly incompetant.But if Bush keeps him through the elections and Dems get control of Congress, maybe they'll try that ass as a war criminal, which is even more to my liking.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Rumsfeld claims he never heard any of these critiques when the Generals were still in active duty, and only hears it now that they have retired.

Is he stupid enough to think any of these generals would risk their careers (and possibly violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice) by criticising him while they were on active duty?

Am I the only one who thinks any official critique of Rummy was never going to reach him because he didn't want those criticisms to reach him?

Yes, probably. Do you really think that if an active duty general publicly criticised the Secretary of Defense that the Secretary would not have heard about it and had that general's head on a platter?

Thoe only reason he hears these things now is that Rumsfeld can't squelch the entire media like he could the Generals below him on active duty. I think Rumsfeld has proven he is not up the task of being a military commander, and that these critisisms are just, and correct.

I don't think that his capability as Secretary of Defense (which is a civilian position, not a military one) has anything to do with whether he could squelch the media. Further, since the media cannot be trusted with anything, I wouldn't put any more value on what the media says than on a used piece of toilet paper.

The fact that you are not hearing this until now speaks of the standard operating proceedure of this administration, and Rumsfeld fits right in this bunch of crooks. They doesn't want anybody looking over their shoulder, or critiquing their work, and for good reasons, they're crooks with an agenda, and thery can't have people finding out what that might be.

You REALLY don't know the military, do you? A person on active duty doesn't have the freedom to criticize his superiors the way civilians do.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready I think Rummy and Bush should be tried for violations of the Constitution. I think the citizens should pursue the life imprisonment, confiscation of their funds to help repay the BILLIONS of dollars in damages they have caused.

Yes, but then the trying body (Congress) would also have to be tried.

[Osborn F Enready]

I think they should all be tried, from the rooftops, by the American people using a .308 Caliber judiciary.

[Sonart]

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I dunno. Would prison be considered retirement?



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[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Sonart . I dunno. Would prison be considered retirement? .

No, a lucrative book and speech deal followed by signing on as "special consultant" to some defense contractor would be considered retirement. Don't expect to see anything different.

But I think Rumsfeld will "quit" and probably be given a medal like Tenet received. Like so many times before, when news like this is reported the subject of the news stories leaves "To pursue other interests" or "due to health considerations", but shortly after. To fire him now would be an admission that Bush DOES watch the news. That ain't happening.

But then again, at his age (74) he might actually RETIRE. Under pressure of course, but he might just call it quits.

Shame. I actually like the guy. Well, USED TO like him, until he started lying too much, and that "you go in with the army you have and not the army you might want" remark made him all the more despicable.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Greg Palast has an interesting take on this
(Note:
The first half of Gregs story is available HERE, but the link to the 2nd half is dead. So I posted the whole story here (I got it from his newsletter in an email) ):

DESERT RATS LEAVE THE SINKING SHIP WHY RUMSFELD SHOULD NOT RESIGN The Guardian - Comment Friday Apr 14, 2006 By Greg Palast Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation. Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and they still don't get it. I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy In the rump, in public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot straight. It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell? It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleeza? It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney? Yes, Rumfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense. Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy. Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil." Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and oil-supporting industries." The General knew of the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government -- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms -- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed "liberation" turned into a hated "occupation." But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab. On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, Jack, you're fired." Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired. Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it. For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the puppet instead of the puppeteers. There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in command. Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.) President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he's taken all their ammo." When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished." Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's the President, stupid.

Palast is back on as a regular at The Guardian, but I couldnt find this story there.

[gr8fuldaniel]

You can get rid of Rumsfeld, but the root of the problem will still exist.

Follow the money:

It's a Family Affair: Bush's War for Rockefeller Oil

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Scribbler No, a lucrative book and speech deal followed by signing on as "special consultant" to some defense contractor would be considered retirement. Don't expect to see anything different.

Indeed. All our snide wishful thinking aside, this is probably dead on. Rumsnamara will likely go on to become a revered "Senior Statesman" among a select group of think-tank true-believers, as well as sitting on a dozen different corporate boards. A position as a pedestrian lobbyist will likely be beneath him.

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