[Terabitten]

This just compounds the appearance of incompetence, failure and defeat.

There was no "appearance," Rumsfeld needed to go. He failed to prosecute the war aggressively enough.

[Sabramerican]

Nonsense.

Prosecuting the war effectively would have meant making sure Syria and Iran and Saudi Arabia and others don't have the ability to support and arm the enemy.

It would have meant not filtering everything through Islamic sensibilities.

The decision not to do anything positive on those fronts was political, not military, and way above his pay grade.

[redgirlinabluestate]

There was no "appearance," Rumsfeld needed to go. He failed to prosecute the war aggressively enough.

If that is true, then it did not become readily apparent to Bush overnight, did it? If Rumsfeld needed to go, then he needed to go for policy reasons months ago, not for political reasons today. That's all.

[Enchante]

"There was no "appearance," Rumsfeld needed to go. He failed to prosecute the war aggressively enough."

I agree, BUT, there was little hope for a better policy before with all the 'Rats-RINOs-DBM types waiting to pounce on anything the least bit controversial to one-worlder socialist morons. NOW, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that Gates or anyone in the military will dare to do anything more aggressive. Now, I'm disgusted to say, it will all be about how to wind down our presence as quickly as possible, hoping Iraq won't collapse into total chaos before we can get out of there.