[Mb-civic] Rumsfeld Rebuked By Retired Generals - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Rumsfeld Rebuked By Retired Generals
Ex-Iraq Commander Calls for Resignation

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2006; A01

The retired commander of key forces in Iraq called yesterday for Donald 
H. Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military 
commanders who have harshly criticized the defense secretary's 
authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.

"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, retired Army 
Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq 
in 2004-2005, said in an interview. "We need leadership up there that 
respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And 
that leadership needs to understand teamwork."

Batiste noted that many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks 
volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the 
leadership climate in the Department of Defense," he said earlier 
yesterday on CNN.

Batiste's comments resonate especially within the Army: It is widely 
known there that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return 
to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there but he declined 
because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld. Also, before going 
to Iraq, he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the 
senior military assistant to Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy 
secretary of defense.

Batiste said he believes that the administration's handling of the Iraq 
war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of 
command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Batiste has said he 
thinks the violation of another military principle -- ensuring there are 
enough forces -- helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting 
too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.

His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Rumsfeld by 
three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their 
peers feel the same way.

"We won't get fooled again," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, 
who held the key post of director of operations on the staff of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002, wrote in an essay in Time 
magazine this week. Listing a series of mistakes such as "McNamara-like 
micromanagement," a reference to the Vietnam War-era secretary of 
defense, Newbold called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others 
unwilling to fundamentally change their approach."

Last month, another top officer who served in Iraq, retired Army Maj. 
Gen. Paul Eaton, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which 
he called Rumsfeld "incompetent strategically, operationally and 
tactically." Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi army troops in 
2003-2004, said that "Mr. Rumsfeld must step down."

Also, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a longtime critic of Rumsfeld 
and the administration's handling of the Iraq war, has been more vocal 
lately as he publicizes a new book, "The Battle for Peace."

"The problem is that we've wasted three years" in Iraq, said Zinni, who 
was the chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the 
rest of the Middle East, in the late 1990s. He added that he 
"absolutely" thinks Rumsfeld should resign.

On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, who is the first Marine to serve as 
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted to tamp down the revolt 
of the retired generals. No officers were muzzled during the planning of 
the invasion of Iraq, he said.

"We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if 
we do not, shame on us," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "The articles 
that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong."

Lawrence T. Di Rita, a counselor to the Defense Department, disagreed 
with the retired generals' characterizations of Rumsfeld's style. 
"People are entitled to their opinions. What they are not entitled to is 
their own facts. . . . The assertions about inadequate exposure to 
military judgment are just fundamentally incorrect," he said.

Other retired generals said they think it is unlikely that the 
denunciations of Rumsfeld and his aides will cease.

"A lot of them are hugely frustrated," in part because Rumsfeld gave the 
impression that "military advice was neither required nor desired" in 
the planning for the Iraq war, said retired Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, 
who until last year commanded Marine forces in the Pacific Theater. He 
said he is sensing much anger among Americans over the administration's 
handling of the war and thinks the continuing criticism from military 
professionals will fuel that anger as the November elections approach. 
He declined to discuss his own views.

Another retired officer, Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, said he believes 
that his peer group is "a pretty closemouthed bunch" but that, even so, 
his sense is "everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around 
him should be cleared out."

He emphatically agrees, Riggs said, explaining that he believes Rumsfeld 
and his advisers have "made fools of themselves, and totally 
underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict."

Military experts expressed some concern about the new outspokenness of 
retired generals.

"I think it flatly is a bad thing," said Richard H. Kohn, a military 
historian at the University of North Carolina who writes frequently on 
civilian-military relations. He said he worries that it could undermine 
civilian control of the military, especially by making civilian leaders 
feel that that they need to be careful about what they say around 
officers, for fear of being denounced as soon as they retire.

"How can you prosecute a war if the military and civilians don't trust 
each other?" Kohn asked.

Also, the generals themselves may be partly to blame for the situation 
in Iraq, along with Rumsfeld and the White House, said Michael Vickers, 
an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a 
Washington think tank.

"It's just absurd to lay the blame on Don Rumsfeld alone," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/12/AR2006041201114.html?nav=hcmodule
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