More Calls to Replace Rumsfeld

This is from the Washington Post:

By David Ignatius

Friday, April 14, 2006; Page A17

With luck, Iraq will make a fresh start soon with the formation of a new government. The Bush administration should do the same thing by replacing Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

Rumsfeld has lost the support of the uniformed military officers who work for him. Make no mistake: The retired generals who are speaking out against Rumsfeld in interviews and op-ed pieces express the views of hundreds of other officers on active duty. When I recently asked an Army officer with extensive Iraq combat experience how many of his colleagues wanted Rumsfeld out, he guessed 75 percent. Based on my own conversations with senior officers over the past three years, I suspect that figure may be low.

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Mr Ignatius makes a few valid points that I agree with right until he suggests that Joe Lieberman be appointed Secretary of Defense. The only way Joe Lieberman could make Americans feel safer is if Chuck Norris stood next to him every time he made a public appearance. In fact Chuck Norris might be as qualified as Joe Lieberman to be Secretary of Defense. Although I believe that either other them would do a better job than Rumsfeld.

I say that because I don't believe that Rumsfeld considers opinions that aren't his own. He's a my way or the highway kind of guy. That attitude can work well if you're a general in the field. But intractability doesn't win wars. It sure didn't work for Hitler who effectively tried to plan the 2nd half of WWII by himself. In fact he was so bad as a general that the Brits chose not
to assassinate him rather than have someone more competent as a military leader take his place. And thats exactly what we need.

Now keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the fact that Rumsfeld had repeatedly refused to to fund my army of robots. Which I can assure do an excellent job of keeping the peace. Publicly skinning people alive in under five seconds is a great crime deterrent. But thats neither here nor there.

If we are going to achieve victory in a timely manner we need new ideas and someone who will actually listen to them and commanders in the field. It was Rumsfeld who chose to ignore the original troop strength reccomendations for the war and send in 1/3 rd that number. That esulted in our forces inabilility to effectively police the country once it had fallen. The looting that occured as a result of that allowed for weapons caches and banks to be pillaged thereby supplying and funding what became the insurgency. I've commented on this before so I'll stop here. Remember folks stubborness and inflexibility are not virtues and they certainly aren't traits that make for a great Secretary of Defense.