WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.
"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.
A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ...."
"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," he added in testimony prepared for the hearing, held six weeks before the November 7 midterm elections, in which the war is a central issue.
But Batiste, Eaton and retired Col. Paul X. Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq, and Batiste also was senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Batiste, who commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, also blamed Congress for failing to ask "the tough questions."
He said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.
Batiste said if full consideration had been given to the requirements for war, it's likely the U.S. would have kept its focus on Afghanistan, "not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents."
Hammes said in his prepared remarks that not providing the best equipment was a "serious moral failure on the part of our leadership."
Eaton was responsible for training the Iraqi military and later for rebuilding the Iraqi police force.
He said planning for the postwar period was "amateurish at best, incompetent a better descriptor." -
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Funny how things work out. The story below came out today, too.
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U.S. report says Iraq war has fueled terror threat 9:43 a.m. EDT, September 25, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A classified intelligence report concludes that the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat to the United States, U.S. officials told CNN Sunday.
Some intelligence officials have said as much in the past, but the newly revealed document is the first formal report on global trends in terrorism by the National Intelligence Estimate, which is put out by the National Intelligence Council.
And raising doubts whether the Iraqis can maintain order once a security operation in Baghdad concludes, The Associated Press reported Sunday that some U.S. soldiers working in Shiite neighborhoods say the Iraqi troops are among the worst they've ever seen.
Citing officials familiar with the report, The New York Times said the document "attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee."
Intelligence officials told CNN the report, completed five months ago, said the war and the insurgency are the main recruiting vehicles for new Islamic extremists. - CNN
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None of this is news to some of us. To others, it's probably a pack of lies. I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating. How
are we doing in Iraq? Is the insurgency still in its "death throes"? Is the "not a civil war" slowing down or speeding up? It is, too, in its "death throes"?
With the war now in its 43rd month (Our own Civil War lasted 48 months and 3 days, and the US participation in WWII lasted just over 44 months.), is the end in sight? Are we any closer to victory than we were when Saddam fell? Will there really be a victory of some sort? If so, will it have been worth it? If no victory is achieved, was it worth it? Is the world a safer place because we invaded Iraq?
