http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0414/p01s03-usmi.html
from the April 14, 2006 edition
REBUTTAL: Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace (left) defended embattled
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Tuesday.
YURI GRIPAS/REUTERS
Retired generals speak out to oppose Rumsfeld
They say he quashed dissent and bungled Iraq's occupation. Joint Chiefs' chair
disagrees.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
A growing number of retired generals are publicly opposing US conduct of the
war in Iraq, breaking a decades-old tradition of not criticizing ongoing
military operations.
The focus of their ire: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Four generals have
called for his resignation, saying he ignored military advice and made key
strategic mistakes.
The Pentagon needs a fresh start, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste said in
several interviews Thursday. "We need a leader who understands teamwork, a
leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without
intimidation," he told CNN.
General Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq until he retired
last year, is the latest high-ranking officer to speak out.
The criticism has reached such a pitch that Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Tuesday publicly refuted the
criticisms - particularly the notion that generals and admirals at the Pentagon
are somehow cowed by the strong-minded secretary of Defense.
"We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do
not, shame on us because the opportunity is there," General Pace declared
(without being asked). "We're expected to [speak out]. And the plan [for
invading Iraq] that was executed was developed by military officers, presented
by military officers, questioned by civilians as they should, revamped by
military officers, and blessed by the senior military leadership."
With Rumsfeld at his side, Pace added, "this country is exceptionally
well-served by the man standing on my left."
Still, the criticisms keep coming.
Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of US forces in the Middle
East and Central Asia, blames Rumsfeld for a "series of disastrous mistakes."
Writing in the New York Times, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton accused the Defense
secretary of "ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates
any chance for input.... I have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant
and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge
the notions of the senior leadership." General Eaton was in charge of training
Iraqi forces from 2003 to 2004.
In a Time magazine essay this week, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former
operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says US military policy in
Iraq has been marked by "successive policy failures." Among these: "distortion
of intelligence ... micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough
resources ... failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military."
Other former military officers have criticized the war strategy without
directly attacking Rumsfeld.
"Serious mistakes [were made] in the immediate aftermath of the fall of
Baghdad," Colin Powell, former secretary of state and Joint Chiefs chairman,
said in a speech last week. "We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We
didn't impose our will. As a result an insurgency got started, and it got out
of control."
In this, Powell echoed former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who told
Congress just weeks before the 2003 invasion that several hundred thousand US
troops would be necessary to secure Iraq after the invasion. For this he was
publicly contradicted by then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld
named General Shinseki's replacement a year before he was to retire and broke
custom by not attending his retirement ceremony.
"What's remarkable to me is how long it took military resentment of Rumsfeld to
surface in public," says military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington
Institute in Arlington, Va.
"Rumsfeld apparently has convinced the president that military criticism of his
performance is traceable mainly to resistance to change," says Dr. Thompson.
"That interpretation of the criticism isn't totally wrong. But much of the
officer corps thinks he simply doesn't understand technology or operations in
sufficient depth to grasp the consequences of his policies, and yet he
routinely uses his position to quash dissent."
During the Vietnam War, it wasn't just the civilians in the White House and at
the Pentagon who failed to adequately address the strength and determination of
the enemy, concluded then Major H.R. McMaster in his 1997 book "Dereliction of
Duty." Senior military officers were just as culpable for not speaking up.
His book became required reading at the Pentagon. Today Colonel McMaster
commands the Army's 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, where he is a rising
star, lauded last month by President Bush for his unit's work in securing the
city of Tal Afar. In press briefings, the colonel is enthusiastic about the
Army's accomplishment. And if McMaster has any concern about officers failing
to speak up he's keeping it to himself.
Asked about that for a recent New Yorker magazine article, he laughed and said,
"I can't even touch that."
Though some retired senior officers are critical about the conduct of the war,
that doesn't mean they want a quick pullout.
Gen. Merrill McPeak, retired Air Force chief of staff, says if anything the
number of US troops there needs to be doubled - to around the figure Shinseki
predicted would be needed three years ago - if Iraq is to become truly secure
and democratic.
General McPeak lost friends when he started speaking out against the war
several years ago. Now, he says, "everybody is sending me e-mails and cards and
letters saying 'I wish I had seen it the way you saw it from the beginning,'
and I've gotten some of those friends back."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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