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Retired generals blast Rumsfeld

The chorus of retired generals calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation grows louder, but opinions are divided on how widely the critics’ views are shared by currently serving flag officers.

Five retired generals who held important positions under Rumsfeld have publicly assailed the defense secretary over the past few weeks for his handling of the Iraq war. None of the generals advocated withdrawing from Iraq, but all said Rumsfeld should resign.

In a March 19 opinion piece in The New York Times, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said Rumsfeld “has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.” Eaton was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

Then, in an essay headlined “Why Iraq Was A Mistake” in the April 17 edition of Time magazine, retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold said “the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results.”

“We need fresh ideas and fresh faces,” wrote Newbold, who was the Joint Staff’s director of operations until September 2002. “That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach.”

Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste told CNN on April 12 that Rumsfeld had to go. “We need a fresh start in the Pentagon,” said Batiste, who commanded 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Iraq.

“[W]hen decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision-making, sound planning, then we’re bound to make mistakes,” he said. “When we violate the principles of war with mass and unity of command and unity of effort, we do that at our own peril.”

That same day, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs told The Washington Post that Rumsfeld and his advisers have “made fools of themselves, and totally underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict.” Riggs has the distinction of having said more troops were needed while he was still on active duty.

Finally, on April 13, Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who is now retired but who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq in 2004, told The New York Times, “We need to continue to fight the global war on terror and keep it off our shores. But I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.”

The criticism from the generals was disputed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who addressed them in an April 11 Pentagon press conference at which he appeared side by side with Rumsfeld. The senior military commanders all were consulted before President Bush approved the Iraq war plan, according to Pace.

“We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us, because the opportunity is there,” Pace said. “[T]he articles that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong.”

And on April 13, the White House rose to Rumsfeld’s defense. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, “The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation’s history.”

The recently retired generals found a sympathetic ear in Paul Van Riper, who retired from the Marine Corps as a lieutenant general in 1997 but stays close to today’s senior officers.

“I think Secretary Rumsfeld should have been fired three years ago,” Van Riper said. “He is professionally incompetent.”

The retired Marine said the recent criticisms echo the disgust with Rumsfeld that he hears from currently serving officers, up to and including four-star generals, and that these senior officers have urged him to speak out against Rumsfeld. “They absolutely abhor what they see coming out of the Defense Department, and particularly the secretary, and they only continue to march because they’re good soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen,” he said. Pressed on how many such critics he could name among today’s serving flag officers, he replied, “About 25.”

An Army general who retired earlier this decade and keeps in close contact with his peers in uniform said the active-duty generals’ view was that it would be better for the country if Rumsfeld left.

“This opinion is equally shared among both active-duty and retired [generals],” he said. “It’s a universal sentiment.”

Asked how many active generals he could name who felt this way, he replied: “I probably rub shoulders routinely with about a dozen … Virtually all of them are pretty visceral in their response.”

However, other retired generals denied that anger at Rumsfeld was “universal” among their active-duty brethren.

“I’ve not heard too much of that,” said a recently retired Army lieutenant general. “I’ve had plenty of personal experience with him, as well, and he’s a tough boss. It was not infrequently unpleasant to interact with him, in many cases, but I did not find him to be terribly unfair. I thought he was extremely demanding, I thought he pushed people very hard, but I have great respect for his mind, for his logic, for his intent in what he’s trying to do.”

Eaton, Newbold and Batiste are not the first retired flag officers to criticize Rumsfeld publicly. Earlier in the Iraq war, retired Army Gens. Wesley Clark and Barry McCaffrey spoke out against the defense secretary, and former Central Command chief Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine four-star, has been an outspoken critic of Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war.

But so far, only retired flag officers from the ground services have been openly critical.

“It would be not impossible, but unusual, for a submariner, a missileer, a strategic bombing guy to understand what we're talking about,” Van Riper said.

But the Army general who retired earlier this decade — and who said he was not as opposed to Rumsfeld as Van Riper — said that while Marine generals are upset with Rumsfeld simply for “the management of the war,” Army generals’ complaints are “much more expansive,” incorporating what some perceive as Rumsfeld’s dismissive attitude toward senior Army leaders.

“It’s modernization, it’s the size of the Army, in the sense of being under-strength for the mission, it’s the application of resources — there’s a sense in the Army that the institutional Army is slowly being broken because of the number of deployments. It’s all those things stacked together.”