Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation

[SWJED]

25 September (26 Sep Edition) Washington Post - Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation by William Branigin.

Three retired military officers who served in Iraq called today for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, telling a Democratic "oversight hearing" on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon chief bungled planning for the U.S. invasion, dismissed the prospect of an insurgency and sent American troops into the fray with inadequate equipment...

In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."

He told the committee, "If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents."

Joining his call for Rumsfeld to resign were retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was responsible for training Iraq's military and police in 2003 and 2004, and retired Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes, who served in Iraq in 2004 and helped establish bases for the reconstituted Iraqi armed forces...

[Uboat509]

I've never heard of Batiste or Eaton but I am reading Hammes book right now. I wonder how long it will be before the far right labels them a traitors, cowards, shameless opportunists, etc and the far left tries to embrace them with out having any clue what they actually said other than Rumsfeld and resignation. The whole thing will get lost in the political infighting. I support OIF but I am no Rumsfeld fan. Sometimes I think that it is pure stuborness that keeps him in office more than anything else.

SFC W

[BMT]

Eaton is a POS!! He had Benning so screwed up they had to put a BG in Command.
He screwed up the training in Iraqi.

BMT

[SWJED]

Eaton is a POS!! He had Benning so screwed up they had to put a BG in Command.
He screwed up the training in Iraqi.

BMT

Please, the SWC is not a place to drop one liners without an explanation and a tie-in to the thread's topic. Thanks BMT.

[Jedburgh]

There's some discussion of MG (Ret) Eaton and his time in Iraq over on the blog RofaSix, which also has a number of links to varying opinions of the guy....

[SSG Rock]

Eaton is a POS!! He had Benning so screwed up they had to put a BG in Command.
He screwed up the training in Iraqi.

BMT

There were failures at every level BMT. But Rumsfeld has to take the lion's share of the blame for the current situation, not General Eaton. From everything I've read so far, General Eaton lacked clear guidance, was hinderd by a CPA that had no strategic objective, and that he did not have the resources necessary to complete the task. In fact, I have yet to find ONE book that claims post combat Iraq was properly planned for. Everything I've read describes an OSD that borders on being inept, and an OSD that can't get out of it's own way. From the evidence so far, I cannot in good conscious disagree with that.

I cannot dismiss what these generals have to say. What active duty general would dare speak out knowing what happend to General Shinsecki and SA White? I don't think Rumsfeld need resign yet, but he's going to have to break his silence. He should accept the responsibility for the situation and make some bold decisions regarding our future efforts in Iraq because the current effort is not getting the job done.