Hold the line, Mr. Secretary

A handful of general officers, mostly retired, and ALL left over from the Clinton Cabal in the Pentagon, are putting a full-court press on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign, or Pres. Bush to fire him.

We remember these generals. Most of them were in high positions in the general staff under Clinton when NATO, our European military wing, took on Serbia, and badly bungled that little war, another war of regime change.

These generals don't have a right to criticize Mr. Rumsfeld for bungling a war, well, because he hasn't, and they did.

Under Rummy's leadership, the US military made short work of dictator Saddam Hussein.

That's not to say that there weren't errors made. The failure to properly occupy territory gained in the lightning push to Baghdad resulted in giving the opposition a huge stash of weapons with which to challenge the occupiers afterwards. This is a huge blunder, but at this point, I'm not sure it's correct to say that it was Rumsfeld's fault.

Let's remember the process. First, in 2002, President Bush ordered Rumsfeld to generate a plan for removal of Saddam Hussein. The Secretary then put his general staff to work, and several plans were presented. One was chosen, a plan that called for speed of advance as it's main effect. When President Bush gave the OK for implementation, the plan was put into effect, and the invasion launched. There was the little fiasco with Turkey refusing to allow the 4th Infantry Division to land at their ports and move south into Northern Iraq, so the two-front war that the plan called for was reduced to a multi-prong push up the Tigris and Eupharates river valleys to Baghdad.

The plan had called for speed, and speedy results were achieved. The error of failing to occupy at least the armories, or failing to destroy them, could have been a tactical error or a fault of the plan. We won't know until the invasion is examined in detail by politicians or historians.

If these generals are so smart with all their hindsight, why haven't they answered that question? One or two of them were actually on duty during the war, and must know. Their failure to answer this question leaves me highly suspicious that the answer will be that is wasn't Rumsfeld's fault, it was the fault of the field commanders for failing to secure the armories.

If that's the case, and it's the most likely answer, these generals, Clintonians all, are merely being political pawns, trying to make a pre-emptive strike against the Bush Cabinet to weaken it in advance of the '08 elections.

BTW, to the list of 6 generals, you may add another, USAF General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, former USAF Chief of Staff (under Clinton from 1990 to 1994). You may remember him as an active campaigner and potential Secretary of Defense for John Kerry in the '04 election. He hasn't climbed back on the national stage with his backstabbing yet, but contents himself with climbing on KGW-TV8's stage in Portland, OR to do his hatchet job on the Secretary of Defense. You'll also remember him as "Fop" McPeak. He was best known for dressing the Air Force officer corps to look like waiter captains, all part of his new image for the Air Force, which also included forcing every man and woman with a body mass index greater than his (he was and still is underweight) to lose weight on pain of non-judicial punishment (Article 15). None of the other services adopted this "twiggy" idea, and it was medically unsound, but he was El Jefe, so he got away with it.

Yep, scratch any of these generals and you will find Clintonian base potmetal under their brass plating.

Comments

[AnarchAngel]

Yaknow, just hearing McPricks name again pisses me off. At least Foghat could find his ass with both hands, even if he was blowing Wesley frikking clark (another name which pisses me off).

[Yosemite Sam]

I absolutely loathe McPeak. He also got rid of the standard insignia on BDU's and had everyone wear special ops patches with no other insignia. Special Ops has a reason for the disposable name patches, other troops do not. As noted, he wanted to dress officers like airline pilots. He's one of the reasons I got out.