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| Jed Babbin: Keep the Big Dog running |
| 2006-04-25 |
| WASHINGTON - Everyone is saying that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s days are numbered, thanks in part to increasing calls by some former generals for Rumsfeld’s resignation. But Rumsfeld was hired by George W. Bush to do precisely what he has done to the consternation of the generals who are now coming out to complain about him. When President Bush brought Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon, the president told him to shake up the Pentagon, to transform it from the Cold War structure and culture that it was stuck in to a new force with strategies that could respond to the post-Cold War world. Months before Sept. 11, as Rumsfeld began the transformation of the Pentagon, he ran into contumacious obstructionism from the army and its then-Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki. Shinseki dug his heels in and refused to change much of anything about the Army. Shinseki went as far as to go behind Rumsfeld’s back to the Senate where his political mentor (and long-time family friend, Sen. Dan Inouye of Hawaii) and others backed his play. But for the political cover Sen. Inouye gave Shinseki, he might have been fired then and there. Civilian control of the military means people such as Shinseki cannot be allowed to play the back-channel political games he played again and again. Shinseki stayed, and the Army went on to spend billions on the Stryker armored vehicle, a Cold War style peacekeeping vehicle that is too big and too heavy to be moved by a C-130 tactical airlifter without being partially disassembled. And then came Sept. 11. The Secretary of Defense became the secretary of war and the transformation he had brought to the Pentagon had to be continued under fire. Still, the Army resisted. Shinseki balked at striking at the Taliban. For the record, our forces slashed into the Taliban around Oct. 5, 2001, less than a month after Sept 11. But — aside from Rangers and Army Special Forces — the Army stayed home. Shinseki wanted at least six months to assemble and move an enormous Soviet-like force into Afghanistan and the president wasn’t having any of it. This is why Shinseki retired in 2003 with a festering grudge against Rumsfeld. And then Rumsfeld did the unthinkable. Instead of replacing Shinseki with one of his like-minded underlings, Rumsfeld looked for someone who would fight. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a Special Forces vet, was brought out of retirement to transform the Army in the middle of a war. And he did it. But in the process Rumsfeld, Schoomaker and his team shook up a lot of people. Of the six who have called for Rumsfeld’s firing, all came to rank and prestige in the Clinton days, what some Pentagon wags now call the “Great Period of Neglect.” It was the era of “Blackhawk Down,” of Shinseki ordering the army to wear black berets and buying them from China and of Gen. Anthony Zinni, then commander of CENTCOM, becoming addicted to “stability” in the Middle East, entranced by the Arab leaders he’d come to know well. Stability meant leaving Saddam alone, so Zinni spoke often against the Iraq war before it began. Stability now means leaving Iran to pursue its nuclear weapons program undisturbed. President Bush has made it clear that Rumsfeld has his confidence and that, in his judgment, it’s best for America that Rumsfeld stays. This will only result, sooner rather than later, in another political exercise — and that’s all the “generals’ revolt” is — to remove him. Mr. Bush’s opponents see Rumsfeld as vulnerable. They can’t rid themselves of George W. Bush, but they can damage him by damaging Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is the Big Dog, and those whose feathers he has ruffled in the Pentagon, the press and Congress are the poodles who chase after him. They should follow the principle one Southern gent often reminds me of: If you can’t run with the big dog, you’d better go sit on the porch. Jed Babbin is a former deputy under-secretary of defense and the author of “Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think” and (with Edward Timperlake) “Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States.” He is also a contributing editor at FamilySecurityMatters.org. Examiner |
| Posted by:Steve |