Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld

By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: April 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 22 — The revolt by retired generals who publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened an extraordinary debate among younger officers, in military academies, in the armed services' staff colleges and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq.

In recent weeks, military correspondents of The Times discussed these issues with dozens of younger officers and cadets in classrooms and with combat units in the field, as well as in informal conversations at the Pentagon and in e-mail exchanges and telephone calls. - New York Times
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Some comments from the article -

"This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly," said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. "I can only hope that my generation does better someday."

An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: "The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, 'We cannot do this mission.' They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers" who might otherwise have stayed in uniform for more years.

One Army colonel enrolled in a Defense Department university said an informal poll among his classmates indicated that about 25 percent believed that Mr. Rumsfeld should resign, and 75 percent believed that he should remain. But of the second group, two-thirds thought he should acknowledge errors that were made and "show that he is not the intolerant and inflexible person some paint him to be," the colonel said.

...like the Army major in the Special Forces. "I believe that a large number of officers hate Rumsfeld as much as I do, and would like to see him go," he said, summarizing conversations with other officers.

"The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word," he added. "For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn't Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld's resignation to mean much.

"But this is all academic. Most officers would acknowledge that we cannot leave Iraq, regardless of their thoughts on the invasion. We destroyed the internal security of that state, so now we have to restore it. Otherwise, we will just return later, when it is even more terrible."

A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure," had been made in Iraq.

"We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq," the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. "The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels."

"I feel conflicted by this debate, and I think a lot of my colleagues are also conflicted," said an Army colonel completing a year of work at one of the military's advanced schools. He expressed discomfort at the recent public airing of criticism by retired generals of Mr. Rumsfeld and the Iraq war planning.

But he said his classmates were also pointedly aware of how the Rumsfeld Pentagon quashed dissenting views that many argued were proved correct, and prescient.

In particular, he and others cited the denunciations of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, who was shunted aside after telling Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure and stabilize Iraq after the Saddam Hussein was toppled.
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I posted a while back about the promotion rate being higher now than at any other recent time, due to the retirement of officiers at the top who were simply fed up with what Rumsfeld has done, with bush's backing, of course. The last few weeks, it was retired generals. This week, it is active officers who won't allow their names to be used. What will the next few weeks bring? If Rumsfeld isn't canned (and make no mistake, he won't leave willingly, no matter what the official reason is), in the very near future you will see officers retiring and publically citing Rumsfeld and his "lean, mean, modern military." Even if bush doesn't want to fire Rumsfeld, he will be pressured by elected Republicans who will tell him, rightly so, that he is dragging the party down with him and his war. If bush doesn't, he will almost certainly face a Democratic-controlled House and quite possibly Senate. That could mean investigations into areas that bush does not want to be public knowledge. Faced with that prosepect, bush would sell out his own mother.

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Faced with that prosepect, bush would sell out his own mother.

You're so right. As things get hotter and hotter for Rummy, he better start getting worried. Regardless to how Bush has defended him, he'll find a way to twist everything he said. Some nut will believe him regardless to how he twist his lies.