RUMSFELD

I haven't been able to keep up with the controversies surrounding Rumsfeld and the generals, but I was alerted to an interesting set of notes taking at a talk given by General Anthony Zinni (Ret). http://www.analysis.williamdoneil.com/Zinni_13-Apr-06_notes.html

Q. (Mr. John Barry, Newsweek). What about Rumsfeld? (Then he mumbled something about two of the generals having been in trouble—one of them had to retire at a grade lower.) What is the reason for the current agitation?
A. There’s no collusion. He hasn’t talked to other generals about it. He’s never met the man. Rumsfeld’s responsible. The military accepts responsibility when things go wrong, trying to apply the lessons they learn. What happened in this case? Rumsfeld discarded 10 years of planning toward a true occupation. We needed to take on reconstruction and to control access to Iraq, both from without and within. It was going to take a long time. But Rumsfeld had a cavalier attitude about it, discarding it all as “on-the-shelf, stale old plans,” even though the military is constantly updating its “old plans” so that they do not get “stale.” The assumptions in the plans were dismissed by Rumsfeld as too negative. The problem of no planning was symbolized when General Garner’s group got lost as they made their way into Iraq from Kuwait. Then came the CPA. And Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army. We had communicated with them for years, (promising them their continued existence if they cooperated).