Why Our Military Despises Donald Rumsfeld
by Ralph Nader

Published on Saturday, December 31, 2005 by
CommonDreams.org

Civilian control over the military is a long established
democratic tradition in our country. It was the military
that was believed by our founding fathers to be
susceptible to plunging our country into foreign
adventure. Presently, however, the boondoggles, crimes
and recklessness of draft-dodging George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney and former Air Force pilot, Donald Rumsfeld,
together with their draft-dodging neo-con associates,
have turned this expectation upside down. The civilians
are the war-mongers.

Probably the least told story of the Iraq war-quagmire is
the extent to which the Pentagon military, especially the
U.S. Army brass, disagrees with and despises these
civilian superiors. Donald Rumsfeld, one of the most
disliked of the Secretaries of Defense, has spent much
energy making sure that high level dissent in the
military is muzzled and overlayered by his loyalists.

Just last week Rumsfeld demoted three military service
chiefs in the Pentagon hierarchy and replaced them with
three loyalists who previously worked for his buddy Dick
Cheney.

Right from the beginning the U.S. Army brass opposed the
invasion of Iraq for both military and strategic reasons.
They believed such an attack would absorb massive human
and material resources that would divert from the chase
after the 9/11 terrorists and the resolution of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They disagreed with the
paucity of soldiers that Bush/Cheney and Rumsfeld were to
send there. They were appalled by the lack of post-war
planning directives by the Administration.

At the 4 star general level, the Army brass knew Saddam
Hussein was a tottering dictator, embargoed, surrounded
and contained by the U.S., Britain, Turkey, and Israel,
and unable to field an army equipped with minimum loyalty
and equipment. They also knew that going to Iraq would be
the gigantic equivalent of batting a large bee hive. To
this day Army commanders in Iraq, most recently General
George Casey, recognize that the U.S. military occupation
is a magnet for more and more terrorists from inside and
outside Iraq. CIA Director Porter Goss was more explicit
before Congress last February testifying that occupied
Iraq is a recruiting and training ground for more
terrorists who will return to their countries for more
disruption.

When Colin Powell was at the Pentagon, he developed what
came to be known as the Powell Doctrine-know clearly what
your military and political objectives are, follow up
with overwhelming force and have a clear exit plan.
Bush/Cheney, Rumsfeld violated this Doctrine. Their only
objective was to topple their former ally, in the
Eighties, Saddam Hussein. After that, they were clueless
and surprised by the insurgency.

To top Army officers, the worst of all worlds is Iraq.
Their Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, after
testifying before Congress about the need for over
300,000 soldiers for any such invasion, found his
retirement accelerated. Draft-dodger Paul Wolfowitz, then
number two in the Pentagon, rejected his estimate and
recommended less than half that number.

Retired high military officers, diplomats and
intelligence officials, with good sources inside the
Department of Defense, say that the military is furious
with Bush/Cheney. The latter orders torture with thinly
veiled instructions and dubious legal memos and when
disclosed, as at Abu Gharib, the Army takes the rap to
its reputation.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld start these so-called commando
groups, which included ex-Saddam toughs, and their
predictable atrocities against young Sunni men becomes
the U.S. Army's headache to restrain. The idea behind
these outlaw, death squads, reported/ The/ /New York
Times Magazine/ last year, was to enable summary
destruction of arbitrary 'suspects' and terrorization of
the Sunni population. The Army kept telling
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld that such Administration-approved
mayhem was backfiring and fueling more hatred by the
Sunnis against the U.S., its troops, and these hired
gangs.

The Administration finally responded by telling the Army
to assign more men to advise and monitor these gangs
which the U.S. is equipping and paying.

Other sources of irritation within the military is
Bush/Cheney making sure that the fallen soldiers and the
injured soldiers are returned in stealth fashion at Dover
Air Force base and Andrews Air Force base outside of
Washington, D.C. Bush/Cheney do this for political
reasons, knowing opposition to the war increases as U.S.
casualties mount.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld still refuse to count officially
U.S. soldiers who are injured outside a combat situation,
again for political reasons. This keeps the official
injury count at about one third of the real total. Career
Army officers do not like their solders being used this
way.

The Army is also upset over the loss of some of their
senior officers and non-commissioned officers to the
giant corporate contractors operating in this cost-plus
environment of maximum profit for less than maximum
service. These companies are hiring away these
experienced soldiers with offers that double or triple
their salaries to do the very privatized jobs which the
Army used to do for itself. In a tight skilled manpower
situation, the Army finds this drain to be undermining
its mission.

On the surface, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld are heavy on their
photo opportunities with the troops, heavy with the
flattery that these political tricksters heap on the
soldiers and alert to any potential public dissent.

There was a recent slip up though. At a Pentagon news
conference, November 29th , a reporter asked General
Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
what should American soldiers in Iraq do if they witness
Iraqi security forces abusing prisoners. The General's
reply: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S.
service member, if they see inhumane treatment being
conducted, to intervene and stop it." Standing next to
him, the calculating conniver, Donald Rumsfeld tried to
distort the words of the forthright Pace by saying that
American soldiers only had an obligation to report any
mistreatment.

In a nutshell, that is the difference between the
Pentagon military and their arrogant civilian superiors
who have disrespected their judgment and ordered them to
shut up and follow unlawful policies. Meanwhile the
quagmire bleeding Iraq continues in its way to bleed
America. Speak up military. Remember the Nuremberg
principles.
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