19 April 2006

Should he stay, or should he go (straight to hell)

David Broder - The Rumsfeld rebellion
But the case the generals are making is as serious as it is passionate. To take but one example, the essay in Time magazine by retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, the former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lists six separate areas where he saw failure on the part of the civilian leadership of government:
"The distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department."


For years, we've been hearing about problems in the military's command culture. Now that it's infected the civilian leadership, too, you wonder who can fix it, and how.

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