Advantage: Rumsfeld
By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The most recent Rumsfeld Retirement Speculation Frenzy appears to have petered out awfully quickly. The whole thing took about ten days. Last Monday, it was Zinni and Eaton. Then suddenly it was Swannack and Riggs and Newbold and Batiste and by Thursday, it seemed the die was cast. A steady drip-drip of dissenting, truth-telling generals was about to turn into a flood. At last, the dam had broken and the whole world would learn what an incompetent, arrogant git Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld really is. He'd be lucky to be able to resign before he was run out of town on a rail.
Even I was a little edgy.
But then just as quickly things turned--in my opinion when former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark decided to insert himself into the situation and call for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation over the weekend. This is not news. Clark has made his opinion known before, notably when he was running for president in 2004--an effort he's rumored to be contemplating again in 2008. His leap onto the truth-telling generals' bandwagon was so transparently political that it seems to have soured the entire effort. And but for Clark, there's been silence for the last five days. Oh, except for the senate democrats, who, ably led by Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Harry Reid (D-NV), have joined in the chorus. And we heard from Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA, incidentally you'll see from that link that Ms. Pelosi is now a heroine to the Tehran Times), both of whom also think Mr. Rumsfeld should resign.
But they're not generals.
What a disappointment. Now I know it was a holiday weekend and all, but is anyone in doubt that the media was open and ready for business on Easter Sunday should any other dissenting generals have wished to ease their guilty consciences? Something tells me they've gotten the numbers of a large percentage of those roughly 8,000 retirees everyone's been talking about and have been doing some cold calling as they try to keep this dying story alive. When hopes were high, Richard Holbrooke suggested this was the tip of the iceberg. He ominously insinuated that more dissenters would soon be heard from, and that high-level resignations among the active ranks were also "likely." Time (which broke the Newbold story) and Newsweek (with a handy "roll-call" of dissenting generals) both went with the story for their April 24th editions. Yesterday, the Boston Globe called the dissenting generals a "cascade" "pouring" out of retirement, despite the fact that none had appeared for days. In the "never say die" spirit, CNN's Jeff Greenfield tried to keep the story alive last night with "Time for Rumsfeld to go?"
But despite these heroics, the effort appears to have come up short. Today, the articles seem to be more retrospective on a story that is over--why did this happen and what are the ramifications--than presenting anything new. What we're left with is the shrill disappointment of liberal politicians and the media. And this noise is being drowned out by a robust defense of Secretary Rumsfeld by retired generals, as well as by his military counterpoint and by his boss. And by a deafening silence from the armed forces. And, most importantly, by Mr. Rumsfeld himself.
Mr. Rumsfeld's response to this "crisis" has been interesting. His office seems to have been somewhat flat-footed in its initial handling of the matter, which is understandable even if it was unfortunate because someone is calling for his ouster pretty much every six weeks. As he has said, if he gets too hung up on each episode, he would never get anything done. Furthermore, this one started with General Zinni, who's out selling his book and has said such things before, and so did not look that significant on his own. Be that as it may, it seems the Secretary was caught off-guard by the questions in last Tuesday's press conference--a European friend reported that on the broadcast she watched, the audio was left on after the briefing was over. She could hear the Secretary berating his PR staff in the hallway, saying things like "You're LATE!" and "This has been going on for a week?" It took them until Friday, but once they got their act in gear the results were unprecedented and impressive--the President's statement from Camp David, and Mr. Rumsfeld himself appearing on Talal Al-Haj on Al Arabiya and the Rush Limbaugh show (carefully chosen venues, of course, to which I'll return below). Meanwhile, a new slew of generals came out, this time in support of Mr. Rumsfeld--Peter Pace, Dick Myers, Tommy Franks, John Blair, Vern Clark, Mike DeLong, John Crosby, Thomas McInerney, Burton Moore and Paul Vallely. This kerfuffle started as, pardon my French, a pissing contest, and by my count, the Secretary has more stars on his side. Their defense has been reasoned and forceful--and effective.
Yesterday (Tuesday) may well prove to have been the coup-de-grace for this whole episode. Pushed to respond to the criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld, the President shot back that while he listens to "all voices," he--rather like Secretary Rumsfeld--has to come to an ultimate decision, which is his right and well as his responsibility. And he has decided that Mr. Rumsfeld stays.
Then the Secretary made his own case at the Pentagon press briefing yesterday. He really is his own best asset in these situations. He was not defensive or strident; he was confident, relaxed and forceful, and struck a delicate balance between aggressively defending his achievements and being apparently-respectful of his critics. Asked, not surprisingly, off the bat about the criticism, he followed his opening statement with a nine-minute answer that outlined his accomplishments and goals. He detailed his record ("Now, let me just take a minute and tell you what's gone on in this last five years...") He expressed his commitment to his job ("I have a sense of urgency. I get up every morning and worry about protecting the American people and seeing if we're doing everything humanly possible to see that we do the things that will make them safe.") And he suggested that we not be too harsh with the dissenters. At the beginning of his answer, he said that "Change is difficult. It also happens to be urgently necessary." Later, he continued, "there's a lot of change going on, it's challenging for people, it's difficult for people. And we have to, I think, be reasonably tolerant with respect to things that get said." In other words, he's a man of action who's moving forward while his detractors are trying to pull us back--but they're really just timid or tradition-bound souls who are to be pitied more than censured.
Ouch.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace also put on a good show. He and Rumsfeld are so clearly at ease--ribbing each other, interrupting, etc.--that their interaction provides evidence in and of itself that the Secretary does indeed listen to the military. General Pace made a number of good points, but I thought the best was his direct appeal to the parents of our enlisted men and women:
I mean, it's important for the American people to understand how this dialogue takes place; that they understand that decisions are not in a vacuum; and that all of those of us who you trust with the lives of your sons and daughters -- you trust us -- that we are going to speak our minds as we should to the leadership, so that they can make decisions based on as much knowledge as possible; so we all have the same facts that lead us to different opinions, potentially, that lead us to a dialogue, that gets to the right solution.
He followed that up with:
It would be unfair to leave that statement ["there is a great deal of dissatisfaction within the officer corps with your leadership"] the way it is. It is not my experience that that's true.
General Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, just came back from -- I think it was a week in Iraq. He got exactly zero questions about the leadership in the department. Last week, while all this is going on back here, guess what they're focused on out there -- they're focused on their mission and getting the job done. The sergeant major -- my sergeant major -- Sergeant Major Gainey just got back from the Gulf region himself, and he received no questions like that, even though he did a lot of probing. The fact of the matter is that the folks who are out doing this nation's business are appreciative of the leadership that's being provided and understand the missions they have and the value of what they're doing.
General Pace's carefully-worded answers bring me to my next point. For good or ill, Democrats have embraced this story as their cause du jour. As Elephant Friend Bill Baar pointed out in an email, after Russ Feingold's censure motion started to look like political suicide for the congressional democrats, attacking the Secretary of Defense may well seemed a logical alternative. Forcing Mr. Rumsfeld to resign in disgrace would be a de facto censure of the President for the conduct of the Iraq war--and the congressional democrats could keep their hands clean and sing with the angels on this one. You can see their logic. But like all their other "gotcha" causes, this seems to be something of a bust because they can't force additional generals to come forward or solicit defections from the active ranks that aren't there. Secretary Rumsfeld's strength and support appears to run much deeper than they bargained--and to their distress they may find that they have actually increased it through this little stunt.
You see, something tells me that this "politicization" of the military by the retired generals isn't sitting to well with the enlisted ranks--if such polling were done, it would be quite interesting to see Commander in Chief and SECDEF popularity polls within the military from two weeks ago and today. I think that in the end, among the civilians, those who believe Donald Rumsfeld is a torture-happy, war-mongering sadist will continue to do so, and those who see him as an energetic, innovative and effective Secretary of Defense will also retain their views. But with the military? I bet his numbers are rising, largely because Mr. Rumsfeld understands that given his job, this is the only poll that really matters. The comments made by both Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace at the briefing yesterday were directed straight at the concerns of the rank and file military, which is much more likely to watch such things on the Pentagon Channel than the rest of the populace. They provided a united front on the rigorous nature of civilian-military policy debate and the seriousness with which they take their jobs. Mr. Rumsfeld's recent media appearances on talk radio and Arabic television are also targeted towards a military audience, both at home and abroad. As the Chicago Tribune noted today in one of what is becoming a slowly-increasing number of pro-Rumsfeld editorials, if the Secretary "has lost the confidence of the president or of his own commanders" the game is up and he'll have to resign, right or wrong. But as the Trib points out, there is no evidence that this is the case. I would add quite the opposite--Mr. Bush's expressions of confidence in Mr. Rumsfeld are unprecedented in the history of his administration. General Pace's support has been unwavering. And, as I said above, his standing with the broader military has almost certainly been improved by this episode, if only because such "speaking truth to power" just plain rubs most soldiers the wrong way, especially if they see their mission as largely successful.
So what will be the results of this little tennis match? Mr. Rumsfeld has taken a hard knock--some think a crippling one. But from where I sit he has come out with the advantage, even if a few more retirees come forward. The threat of disgruntled officers has been hanging out there for some time, and it was much more ominous in the abstract. In reality, after all the dark innuendo, it seems rather meagre. Furthermore, the counter-offensive might have been a little slow off the mark, but the Secretary appears to have taken the wind pretty effectively out of the enemy's sails. The New York Times has a slightly different take on this than I do, but even the old grey lady admits the effort has been "extraordinary" and is "working." It is now up to Mr. Rumsfeld to capitalize on his critics' disarray, and it's interesting (and encouraging) in this context that one of the retired generals who met with the Secretary yesterday, Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Wilkerson, describes him as "energized" by the episode (see above Times link). I might suggest that he channel some of that energy into an extended briefing on the translated Saddam-al Qaeda documents held by the Pentagon, or a trip to Iraq to both visit the troops in the field and to knock some sense into the fledgling Iraqi government. In any event, the important thing is to quickly jump onto the offensive, force the enemy back on his heels and press the advantage.
But he doesn't need me to tell him that now does he? Such a course of action would be, after all, classic Rumsfeld.
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Even if they (the disgruntled generals) didn't succeed, they got their admission ticket (to the President Hillary's SecDef auditions) punched. That's probably the important thing.
and in this case the jobs... Good point
when the White House began listening to me.
Bravo, Mr. President. Give 'em h*ll Mr. Rumsfeld.
to Rumsfeld and our President.
"Victory in war does not depend entirely upon
numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it."
Flavius Vegetius Renatus
Wesley Clark last Sunday did explain that while the other anti-Rumsfeld retired generals were safely on the sidelines of the political battlefield protected by "patriotic immunity", he was the only declared "politician" among them. Unlike the cowardly 6 hiding behind the uniforms in their closets, former Presidential candidate, Wesley Clark, was drawing fire from the Rumsfeld forces. While what he did was to promote himself at the expense of the 6 self-proclaimed "non-political" retired generals, his characterization of them as cowards did help Rumsfeld.
Starting the first two weeks of the Afghanistan effort, the left has regularly come up with dire warnings about How Poorly President Bush Has Done His Job. Afghanistan was a quagmire. Iraq is a quagmire. Bush is stupid. Bush is a liar. WMD. Abu Ghraib. Plamegate. Yellowcake. Katrina. Domestic spying on international terrorist phone calls. Rumsfeld is incompetent and should be fired.
The article alludes to a crisis du jour, which is exactly what has happened, every few weeks, for almost five years. And it always involves the same perpetraitors (Dimocratic Party operatives), ably assisted by fellow travelers (leftist MSM, leftist CIA, leftist State Department, retired flag officers).
Each of the crises du jour comes to a rolling boil, and then sort of loses interest and urgency. Some of them revive periodically (Plamegate).
The most enduring crisis du jour is the WMD; did you know that President Bush invented the story about the WMD in order to start an unnecessary and unjust war for oil and his friends at Halliburton?
So, why did the US Senate unanimously vote for the Iraq Liberation Act 1998, which condemned Iraq and Saddam for WMD and terrorist activity, and made regime change in Iraq a matter of USA policy? President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law. At the time, Bush was Governor of Texas. Yet the same Senators who voted for the Iraq Liberation Act now insist that there were no WMD, Iraq was not a threat, and Bush made it all up.
This is typical of the Dimocratic perpetraitors. Plamegate is a legal proceeding and requires documentation. Wild charges may look good as NYT headlines, and may sway people like Michael Moron and Kos, but the truth is emerging.
The problem is that the incessant Dimocratic lying has taken a toll on the Administration, and more importantly, on the standing of the USA in the world. There are people out there that, for their own purposes, are eager to believe every bad thing the Dimocrats say about the USA and President Bush.
Fortunately, the only poll that counts takes place every other year in November. The first item of business in any national election is the state of the economy. The Dims and the leftist media like to pretend that the state of the economy is terrible, just terrible, but that's not right; the economy is recovering rapidly from the Bubba Bubble, and all economic indicators (employment, inflation, growth) are go.
The war will also be important in the upcoming elections, and it is essential that progress continue in Iraq. President Bush will not leave unfinished business in Iran, unlike Clinton, who left unfinished terrorist business all over the world. But the dishonest statements of the lying Dimocrats must be countered; support of the American people must be assured, and support from Allies overseas would be nice, even if not really essential.
...and you pounded it home:
"While what he did was to promote himself at the expense of the 6 self-proclaimed "non-political" retired generals, his characterization of them as cowards did help Rumsfeld."
It also helped Wesley"The Original Gadfly General"Clark re-establish his creds as the number one Martial Moonbat. He has previously signalled his willingness to serve the Dowager Empress in some capacity, although he still has presidential aspirations as well. Either way, he sent a signal that the little generals must get in line if they want to work in his DOD or Hillary's.
As far as his "coward' charge goes, who is the one who waited until all the little generals tested the waters for him before he came forward with his bold denunciation of Rumsfeld and his self-serving attack on the ones who stole his spotlight?
Crabs in barrel, all of them.
Used by Wes as both point men and bait, the 6 retired anti-Rusmfeld snipers now suffer from both self-inflicted wounds, and friendly fire stabs in the back.
actually, not a "nice try" at all - this Administration's critics have been trying to create a scandal for 6 year, to no avail. They simply throw things against the wall, announce semi-debatable conduct with breathlessness, and hope a story catches on. In 2001 Enron was a scandal because the Bushes helped prop up the fraud; then it was a scandal because the Bushes did nothing to stop the company's crash. They've been trying like hell to drum up opposition, any opposition, and it's no surprise this story never got legs. It was ridiculous, overblown nothingness from the get-go.
from Bob Schieffer, I might have changed my mind about whether Rumsfeld will resign.
After all, CBS News has so much credibility. Perhaps we should send him AE's post so
He can be enlightened as to the current state of affairs.
"Schieffer said he wasn't sure that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, under fire for his handling of the war in Iraq, would endure much longer in his post. He didn't put much stock in President Bush's recent declaration of support for Rumsfeld."It was also this president who said, 'Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job,'and that was just before Brownie got canned," Schieffer said, referring to former FEMA Director Michael Brown.
Much like retired CBS anchor Walter Cronkite -- who famously criticized the Vietnam War on-air after initially giving it robust support -- Schieffer was not optimistic about U.S. prospects in Iraq.
"I'm very pessimistic about this thing right now," said Schieffer, an Austin, Tex. native who had supported Bush's decision to order the invasion in 2003".
Daily Record - April 20, 2006
Does Shieffer really need me to detail to him how Rumsfeld and Brown are different? Does he need me to compare and contrast the Presidents one, off-the-cuff comment about Brown and his prepared statements on Rumsfeld? Or does he just want this to be true so badly that he doesn't care about what's really going on?
How amusing that everyone's going on and on about how old Rumsfeld is, how it's time for him to resign, etc. Rumsfeld? How about Shieffer?
Do they really wonder why their credibility is so low?
Note bene: they don't look very impressive whining "Rummy was so MEAN to me!"
and as pointed out in an excellent post by Dafydd at Big Lizards Blog http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2006/04/fema_rising.html#more
Bush may have been right about his comment towards Brown.
That he caved to pressure to dismiss him is likely a result of the relative importance of Brown and Rumsfields mission rather than an indication that Bush is lilely to waffle on Rumsfield.
So, why did the US Senate unanimously vote for the Iraq Liberation Act 1998, which condemned Iraq and Saddam for WMD and terrorist activity, and made regime change in Iraq a matter of USA policy? President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law. ...
They were for it before they were against it. The voted for force so that force would not be used.
Oceania is at war with Eastasis, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
that I listen to for deep understanding its a broadcast TV newsreader. :-)
They think that sitting on a set with the big eye pointed at them gives them some special insight into the world.
and things appear to be heading on some sort of path out of the wilderness, this will all be history. If things stay the same or deteriorate, Rumsfeld will be forced out, or if not, left neutered. We have two arguments, one is that the entire project is flawed and without major revisions, (i.e. rummy leaving) doomed. The other is that this is just a rough patch worth fighting through.
Which general is for whom, what the NYT says, or how fast Rumsfeld responded is largely irrelevant outside of our domestic newscycle. None of that will reveal which argument has the most merit, or predict how things play out on the ground.