The Rumsfeld Mutiny

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
…

Then I’m real curious what you’re reading. And the officer corps was Sunni-dominated, of course, but the conscript enlisted men were largely Shiite. Instead of being paid and kept out of trouble they probably constitute significant portions of the militias of Sadr, the Dawa Party, SCIRI and the rest.
…

These guys are not at the heart of the problem.

The problem is primarily Sunnis and foreign fighters to a lesser extent.

Speaking of Strategypage, they had this to say:

"One of the key decisions the government-that-doesn’t-exist-yet has to make, is what to do with the Shia and Kurd militias. There are two each, and the two Shia militias, those of the Badr and Sadr organizations, both backed by Iranian factions, are the most dangerous. The Shia militias represent Shia political parties that want to run the government. Not a democratic government, but a religious dictatorship

The two Shia militias are basically religious gangs, whose crimes are now seen as more of a problem than the declining violence of the Sunni Arab terrorists. For nearly three years, these Shia religious radicals were considered an asset. While the Shia radicals in southern Iraq are protected by the 10,000 armed men of the Badr Brigade (a part of (SCIRI, or the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), a smaller, but similar organization exists in central Iraq. This is the Mahdi Army, led by Muqtada al Sadr. This group tried to fight the U.S. forces, and lost big time. The Mahdi Army only has a few thousand armed men, and they have made themselves very popular in the Shia community by fighting the Sunni Arab gangs and terrorists that went after the millions of Shia Arabs living central Iraq."

The Shia militias are very much a problem. They don’t fight us openly as much, but they are mostly pushing for an Islamic state governed by sharia, and their death squads (targeting Sunnis) both make a civil war more likely and help drive more Sunnis into the arms of the insurgents.

If you think keeping the former Shia conscripts in the Iraqi army would have prevented them from siding with their own people I think you are mistaken.

We have had enough trouble weeding the bad ones out of the new police force and army. Just keeping the old ones in would have been no help at all.[/quote]

It’s not an issue of “good ones” or “bad ones” as much as it is an issue of keeping armed men of military age occupied and paid. Very simple stuff. Debaathification was probably overdone too, but that’s a whole other topic.

And you said no one seriously thought we should keep the Iraqi Army intact? Here’s one of the many voices, retired Marine General Joseph Hoar, a former CENTCOM commander, speaking a year and a half ago:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/interviews/hoar.html

Scroll down to the question “What do you make of our disbanding the Iraqi army? Was it a fundamental error?”

Key line: “You didn’t need to have 30-odd years of experience in the military to realize that sending hundreds of thousands of troops home, all of them armed, and all with military experience, that there’s not going to be any good outcome from that.”

The whole interview is very interesting, as is this entire Frontline episode, there are plenty more interviews of senior generals, journalists, and policymakers accessible from the top right hand corner.

142

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
…

Key line: “You didn’t need to have 30-odd years of experience in the military to realize that sending hundreds of thousands of troops home, all of them armed, and all with military experience, that there’s not going to be any good outcome from that.”

…[/quote]

I agree with this. We should have had POW camps and disarmed them.

They should not have been sent home right away.

That does not mean we should have kept the Iraqi army intact. It is just the opposite, we should have done a better job of dismantling it.

143

Charles Krauthammer had an excellent column on this today:

EXCERPT:

[i] The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.

But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.

We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.

That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?

It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.[/i]
144

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Charles Krauthammer had an excellent column on this today:

EXCERPT:

[i] The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.

But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.

We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.

That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?

It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.[/i][/quote]

This was excellent?

145

[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
If Rumsfeld were to step down and were replaced by a Pentagon insider, would that make you happier?

vroom wrote:
Could it at least be someone who served in the military and saw combat?[/quote]

Not unless that person has been out of the military for at least 10 years, according to the law. So anyone who has been active duty military has to have been out of the service for 10 years to be eligible to serve as SecDef - Part of the mechanism for making sure that the SecDef is a civilian in charge of the military.

146

[quote]Professor X wrote:

This was excellent?
[/quote]

A good perspective on the situation that I have not seen much discussed - particularly if one cares about structural issues.

147

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Charles Krauthammer had an excellent column on this today:

EXCERPT:

[i] The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.

But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.

We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.

That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?

It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.[/i][/quote]

Excellent? Comparing this kind of dissatisfaction with Rumsfeld to a banana republic coup is kind of ludicrous. Yes, it certainly is a big deal, maybe not totally unprecedented but pretty rare. But one could argue that a Defense Department staffed by total ideologues instead of technocrats (Feith being example A) is also a new development, and this is an entirely understandable reaction to both that and the many mistakes made in Iraq.

148

It can’t be that hard to find someone who has served in something more recent than WWII but no more recent than the first Gulf War.

149

The New Republic offers a potential Rumsfeld successor, not sure I agree, but interesting choice:

TRB FROM WASHINGTON
Rummy Punch
by Peter Beinart
Post date 04.21.06 | Issue date 05.01.06
Of course George W. Bush should fire Donald Rumsfeld–it’s no longer an interesting debate. Even the Iraq war’s most fervent supporters–people like John McCain–have denounced Rumsfeld’s refusal to send enough troops to secure Baghdad in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s fall. Rumsfeld’s support is now concentrated among people less invested in the survival of Iraq than in the survival of Bush. And, even on the right, their numbers are dwindling fast.

The real question is whether, at this point, Rumsfeld’s resignation would even make a difference. Pundits are like sports announcers: They have a professional interest in insisting that the game isn’t over–that some dramatic, Hail Mary play could still turn the tide. But, no matter how hard they try, at some point fans turn off the television. And the American public is reaching that point on Iraq. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 57 percent of respondents said either that the United States can’t win in Iraq or that it can but won’t. Majorities want to withdraw at least some troops immediately. This fall, opinion in Congress will likely catch up to opinion in America. The newly elected Democrats–and there will be lots of them–will interpret their victories as mandates for rapid troop withdrawal. And, when they come to town, appropriating the money for a continued occupation will become much harder. At that point, it will hardly matter that Rumsfeld still has his job. He’ll be a political undertaker.

In fact, if you think there is no hope in Iraq, it’s better that Bush not fire Rumsfeld. That way, Bush supporters won’t be able to pawn off blame on people who took over too late to do any good. Imagine, for instance, if John Kerry had won in 2004. It’s unlikely Iraq would be any better today than it is now, but it is very likely that Republicans would be blaming Kerry for the mess. Keeping Rumsfeld has the virtue of clarity. Sending him off to his New Mexico estate–with a “thanks-for-a-great-career” pat on the back, if not a presidential medal of freedom (L. Paul Bremer and George Tenet both have them)–would almost be too kind. Simply serving as secretary of defense in the ugly days to come might be the worst punishment of all.

But if you do think there’s hope for Iraq, Rumsfeld must be fired immediately. And, since Bush presumably still does, it is amazing that he can’t see the political logic staring him in the face. Bush prides himself on his loyalty. And, in certain circumstances, it is indeed admirable. One of Bush’s finest moments came after he was walloped in the 2000 New Hampshire primary by John McCain, when he assembled his top advisers in a room and told them that he took all the blame, and no one would be fired. If Kerry or Al Gore had shown that kind of loyalty to the people who ran their campaigns, they might have gotten some in return–and one or both might have become president.

But reinforcing Bush’s loyalty is a frightening intellectual parochialism and a near-pathological fear of appearing politically weak. And those less admirable qualities are blinding him to the fact that his give-no-quarter, stay-the-course, brand-the-critics-as-wusses strategy for selling the war has utterly failed. As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius recently noted, Bush has been aggressively promoting his Iraq policy for months now. And the more speeches he gives, the more support drops. The public has turned off the television.

If there’s any chance of getting them to take a second look (absent good news from Iraq, which seems depressingly unlikely), it starts with separating the debate over what we should do now in Iraq from the debate over whether we should have invaded in the first place. There are legitimate arguments for rapid withdrawal. But the withdrawal argument has also become a way for people to emphasize their opposition to the initial decision to go to war. Opposing continued occupation–like opposing the $87 billion supplemental in 2003–has become part of a larger effort to hold the Bush administration accountable for its disastrous mistakes.

The best way to disentangle the two debates would be to replace Rumsfeld with someone who opposed the war to begin with. Bush would have to invest that person with tremendous power. Ideally, his or her appointment would coincide with the dismantling of Dick Cheney’s shadow national security staff–thus demoting Cheney to the level of past vice presidents. And he or she should also be given the authority to replace John Bolton, which would be a useful olive branch to an enraged Congress, not to mention the rest of the planet. Finally, Rumsfeld’s successor should be given the authority to reconsider all aspects of Iraq policy–as Clark Clifford did when he replaced Robert McNamara late in Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. (That is not to say a successor need decide about Iraq what Clifford decided about Vietnam: that it is unwinnable. Only that Clifford brought intellectual openness to a White House grown agoraphobic, which is exactly what the Bush White House has become today).

My nominee would be Brent Scowcroft. I’m not a big fan of his rather amoral brand of realism. But, in Iraq today, it hardly matters. Even if Scowcroft wanted to put a pliant dictator in charge of Iraq, at this point, he couldn’t. And he would bring key assets to the job. As a retired lieutenant general who also served as national security adviser, he is well-positioned to repair the civil-military gulf that Rumsfeld has created. And, as a vocal war critic from the very beginning, he might win a serious hearing on Capitol Hill and from the American people. If he came out for rapid withdrawal, this goodwill would hardly be necessary; he would be running with the wind. But, if he determined that the United States should stay for a couple more years–that doing so offers at least the fleeting hope that Iraq’s center can hold–he might prove able to bring Congress along. He might convincingly tell the American people what Rumsfeld, and Bush himself, never credibly could: that we’re all in this Iraq mess together.

Such an appointment, of course, is radically unlikely. It would require Bush to break out of his intellectual bubble, to put his trust in his political adversaries, to very publicly eat crow. A more creative, more honest, more confident leader might do that. And America badly needs such a leader in these grim times. Unfortunately, it has George W. Bush–and likely Donald Rumsfeld, too.

Peter Beinart is editor-at-large at The New Republic.

150

Thought I’d throw this in, good recent article in the WSJ about General Batiste:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB114748270803051995-lMyQjAxMDE2NDE3NTQxODUyWj.html