Friday, December 10, 2004
Editorial: Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of shirking
The buck-passing defense chief bears more responsibility than anyone for sending an undermanned, underequipped force to Iraq.
From the RoundTable blog
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Not enough armor for vehicles? Too few troops? Forced duty extensions? "You go to war with the Army you have," he told complaining soldiers testily in Kuwait Wednesday, "not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Yes, but Rumsfeld himself dealt this hand.
From a deck he stacked.
The defense secretary, in fact, has the force in Iraq that he demanded.
And that made it beyond galling when he all but dismissed the concerns of men and women heading into a badly miscalculated war that has claimed almost 1,300 U.S. lives and wounded thousands more.
Final responsibility for the utterly irresponsible postinvasion planning rests at the top, of course. But the U.S. military is Rumsfeld's domain, and he was a key proponent of the war, of minimal troops and light armor, and of maximal optimism about postwar conditions.
Senior military officers and the State Department tried to counsel otherwise. They spoke of the need for 300,000 or 400,000 troops, offered a comprehensive occupation plan, warned of difficulties ahead. Rumsfeld publicly belittled or dismissed their expert opinions. Dissenting officers and officials found themselves in retirement - an obvious message to their successors that dissent would be foolish.
And when chaos set in, followed by a brutal insurgency, Rumsfeld maintained his I-know-best serenity. Freedom is messy, he said, dismissing worries as "Henny-Penny the sky is falling" stuff. Guerrilla insurgents were merely "dead-enders," he insisted - and then even he couldn't say that with a straight face anymore.
But that didn't mean he was wrong. The generals had the troops and equipment they asked for, he insisted.
Now U.S. troops find themselves targeted daily by mortars, roadside bombs and snipers. They scrounge in junk heaps to find armor for their trucks and Humvees. They face lengthening tours of duty. Wednesday they asked the defense secretary why.
A leader would have replied: I will get these things fixed for my soldiers.
Rumsfeld replied: Well, armor isn't all it's cracked up to be. The Pentagon is doing its best. "Stop loss" clauses have been around for years. You have to fight with the Army you have. Suck it up.
Oh, and by the way, it's not his fault.
