Rumsfeld is Not the Problem

So, what with all these calls going on for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign, I bet you’re wondering what regular folks in the military think. Well, I’m gonna tell you.

I don’t have any idea. Neither does anybody I work with. The SECDEF is so far above our heads it’s hard for us to know what he does and what he doesn’t do. Four years ago I’d have told you he was exactly the person the DOD needed, and I still believe that’s true—he was exactly the person the DOD needed at that time, to be the public face of the department. Few people in Washington so successfully handled the press, especially regarding the sensitive matters of terrorism, war, and national defense.

There’s the matter of the planning for the Iraq war, which was clearly bungled. But was it bungled solely by Rumsfeld? I certainly can’t believe it was; it surely took more than one mind to half-ass the occupation so completely. As the Secretary, of course, the buck stops with him—but one of the guiltiest of the guilty, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is now running the World Bank (doing a decent job so far, too, to my unending surprise) and hence not around to be sacked.

The fact is, the generals are complaining about things that happened three years ago. Many of them are complaining now because they’re retired and can complain; we are prevented by the Uniform Code of Military Justice from saying anything negative about the civilian leadership of the military (the Prez, VP, and SECDEF primarily) in any official capacity. The last general to try that, Billy Mitchell, was court-martialed in the 1920s (and though vilified by many pundits at the time, last week we had a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times (Tom Lipscomb) lionizing his decision to accept a court-martial rather than accept government policies he disagreed with and blaming Gen. Anthony Zinni for not doing likewise himself).

Still, complaints about the SECDEF from retired generals who were actually running the war they’re complaining about carry infinitely more weight than complaints from the hoi polloi—and intelligent and traveled as Lipscomb is, he’s still the hoi polloi when it comes to military matters. Regardless of what anyone outside this world thinks, if these people believe Rumsfeld is at fault for something, their complaints merit serious discussion, not partisan vitriol.

Some reports indicate that the animosity goes back to the way former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki was treated by the DOD after declaring that the number of troops required for an invasion and occupation would be significantly higher than the administration was asking for; the genius John Kerry implied in his 2004 campaign that Shinseki was pushed out for disagreeing with the civilian leadership. In fact, Shinseki served out his full term and retired on schedule. There is no question that his relationship with Rumsfeld et al was frosty. Shinseki was responsible for the decision to make the standard headgear for all soldiers the black beret (previously available only to special ops forces), for which he was roundly criticized throughout the civilian and military worlds. Still, Shinseki is widely respected inside the Army, but it seems unlikely that any lingering Rumsfeld/Shinseki enmity is behind the complaints. It’s worth noting Shinseki has been quiet, although he is already on record as saying the Iraq invasion would require far more troops.

I haven’t examined the generals’ comments in detail. If they are implying that Rumsfeld was dictating military strategy and tactics to military leaders in the field, rather than simply giving them the mission and the leeway to accomplish it, then yes, he should resign. That’s Vietnam-era foolishness, the idea of the Executive Branch sitting around picking targets and defining operations. If it’s going on today it must be stopped immediately.

On the other hand, if they are simply arguing that he didn’t give them (or other military leaders) the necessary manpower and materiel to conduct the war, then there’s more room for debate. There’s no question—at least, not outside the right-wing punditry and blogosphere—but that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has not gone according to plan and could have been done much better. The Economist recently ran an interesting article detailing the cost of the war thus far and the potential costs of continued containment, which shows that ultimately the difference may be close to nil. But they fail to consider what the costs might have been of running the war more effectively, of planning for (even if not expecting) a drawn-out insurgency, a brief period of anarchy, sectarian tensions, and the like, and running the war accordingly.

Rumsfeld reportedly offered to resign during the Abu Ghraib scandals. Rumsfeld is not alone complicit, since Abu Ghraib we’ve learned was the not result of any direct order, but rather a culture of permissiveness, a culture that seeped down from the White House itself. Rumsfeld at that point would merely have been a sacrificial lamb, but his departure would not have changed the culture.

And that, I think, is important in the current debate. Will Rumsfeld’s departure change the culture in the Executive Branch? With him gone, will the President finally be able to admit the occupation was botched? When he is out of the way, will everything suddenly become hunky-dory? I don’t think so.

The fact is, there is an individual at the top of the food chain who keeps his friends close and everyone else as far away as possible. His much-vaunted staff-shakeup has consisted in accepting the resignation of one close friend and promoting an even closer, older friend into the same job. The White House today is a closed information loop. If somebody already inside doesn’t think of something, it doesn’t get thought of. The problem is that the people inside all think exactly alike, because that’s the way the President wants it. Getting rid of Rumsfeld may satisfy a desire on the part of some individuals to have someone pay for the mismanagement of the Iraq war. But retribution is a dead-end street; genuine change is going to take a complete personnel turnover. Barring impeachment proceedings (which, let’s not forget, would only put Cheney into the White House, who would little improve the atmosphere there), we’re just going to have to wait for 2009.