[Huck]

By early November, the president had a pretty good idea what that something should be. On November 5, the Sunday before Election Day, he met with Robert Gates, deputy national security adviser and eventually CIA director in the administration of Bush's father, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Bush was looking for a replacement for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose departure was to be announced the day after the election. Gates, president of Texas A&M University at the time, was his first choice. Gates "informed me in the course of the conversation that, as a member of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, he favored a surge of additional troops in Iraq," Bush said. This matched the president's own view. "I was thinking about a different strategy based upon U.S. troops moving in there in some shape or form, ill-defined at this point, but nevertheless helping to provide more security through a more robust counterinsurgency campaign," he said.

...

In September, Rumsfeld had rejected the idea of a surge when retired general Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army and a member of the advisory Defense Policy Review Board, met with him and Pace. Keane insisted the "train and leave" strategy, as Bush referred to it, was failing. He proposed a counterinsurgency strategy, the addition of five to eight Army brigades, and a primary focus on taking back Baghdad. Rumsfeld was unconvinced.

Fred Barnes reporting in the Weekly Standard.

[Leisler]

Fred never run a two man canoe.

The ‘Surge’ wasn’t possible until someone transformed the Army and the other organs from a dated, Soviet Centric equipped and fossilized structure and mentality. The Surged worked because the troops, leaders, equipment, and other agencies had changed. That took years, and support and push for change.

That credit at his level belongs to Rumsfield.

As an aside, one of the criticisms I read of Rumsfeld was his hard, almost prosecutorial questioning of those making propositions.

Which is the right thing to do, as so much smoke is generated and delivered in such a bureaucracy.

There may have been many reasons why at one point in time, Rumsfield wouldn’t accept The Surge. Politics, money, bad presentation, weariness ....there are a hundred to include it being just one of a hundred critical decisions dumped on his desk. Also, where were the Joints? Afraid?

Lastly, Rumsfeld through thick and thin was loyal to Bush, and to the interests of the services as he saw them.

Lastly, who was responsible for not having a follow up after the initial victory?

Who was the architect of the notion of ‘train and leave’?

What I’m getting at is, isn’t the US Army high command, the Generals and the General schools the ones that failed in have so delivered the worlds most well funded military and yet with such little command, theory or thinking on this?

Anyways, Bush was lucky to have tough old Rumsfeld. I can’t but feel that most political appointees would of run for the hills in having 9/11, a new enemy, two wars at the farthest distance, unpopular support here and abroad, plus manage the Pentagon and stayed sane and loyal.

I certainly think so. I think the higher officer schools and command have been very poor for decades on the subject of low intensity and third world state management.

Now that things are smoothing out in Iraq, people are coming out of left field saying they were the ones, and the ones who were doing the hard work at the time are looked back upon as the enemy.

Sorry, I’ve been around too long to let that fly.