Wednesday, April 26, 2006

More top brass blast Rumsfeld

Two more Generals and an Admiral. Go Navy!

More top brass blast Rumsfeld:

"Apr. 25, 2006 In mid-April, under fire from a half-dozen retired U.S. generals for broad failures in Iraq, the Bush White House dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to the front lines of the American heartland. The secretary of defense appeared on talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated show to fight back against the decorated military commanders who called for his resignation.
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The sharper the criticism comes, sometimes the sharper the defense comes from people who don't agree with the critics,' Rumsfeld told Limbaugh during the April 17 interview. He dismissed the barrage of reproach, suggesting that 'the same kinds of criticism' had come and gone during all major American wars, from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam. 'This, too, will pass,' Rumsfeld said.

But the sharp disapproval aired by the retired generals is, by many counts, extraordinary. Among the charges leveled at Rumsfeld was Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton's conclusion that the defense secretary was 'incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.' Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division there, said he 'served under a secretary of Defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team.' Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, the former commander of the elite 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, stressed that culpability for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison leads 'directly back to Secretary Rumsfeld.'"

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