Soldier Asks Rumsfeld Where U.S. Solidarity Has Gone

American Forces Press Service ^ | Jim Garamone

[SandRat]

MOSUL, Iraq, Dec. 10, 2006 -- A soldier in Mosul told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld he was worried because the American people seemed to have lost the combined will they had immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The secretary, who visited Iraq to thank the troops before he steps down from office, allowed that this is true. “In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, the American people came together and were united in their concern about our country,” he said.

But in the years since, there have been no big land, sea or air battles that grab the attention of the American people, Rumsfeld said. The battle against a shadowy enemy is much more complex and less familiar than any conflict America has been involved with before, he explained.

He said the United States has also been fortunate that there hasn’t been another attack on the scale of Sept. 11 in the country. The farther removed some people get from the events of Sept. 11, the more the cohesion and solidarity the American people felt during that period dissipates, Rumsfeld said.

Part of the reason this feeling has dissipated is because there have been no more attacks in the United States. There have been terror attacks in other parts of the world – Madrid, London, Bali and Russia, to name just a few.

The war on terror, Rumsfeld said, is like the Cold War. During the Cold War, public opinion ebbed and flowed. “Millions of people demonstrated against the United States, not against the Soviet Union,” he said. “They acted as if the Soviet Union wasn’t one of the most repressive regimes in history. People were granting moral equivalence to the Soviet Union – a vicious dictatorship – in the free countries of Western Europe and the United States. People can drift off.”

The same is true today, Rumsfeld said. There are many who believe that governments can negotiate with terrorists or who believe if just left alone, they will somehow leave freedom-loving people alone. But that is not possible, Rumsfeld said. “The dangers today, the lethality of the weapons today, the risks to our country, are real,” he said.

A tabletop exercise a few years ago posited a release of smallpox in two airports in the United States. The simulation showed that inside of a year, almost 1 million people would die, Rumsfeld said.

“There are dangers, there are real people out there – as you well know – who will put in place a small number of clerics that will tell everyone how they will live and how they will behave,” he said. “And that’s not what we’re about.”

But overall, the United States and its allies weathered the Cold War. The countries stuck together and today the Soviet Union is no more. “Our country would not be here if we didn’t have the ability to ride through some ups and downs in respect to opinion and come out the other end having made some right decisions,” Rumsfeld said. “I expect the same today.”

[zip]

ping

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

Is it any wonder? He was fired from a job he loves by a man he loves and has been loyal to.

[Arizona Carolyn]

No, it certainly isn't. I hate that he has been made a scapegoat for the war, how many times did our soldiers attempt to go into Sadr City and try to take care of Sadr only to have someone in Iraq complain higher up the ladder and the military had to pull back..

If there is any similarity between this war and Vietnam it is the armchair quarterbacks trying to run the war from DC instead of letting the military kick a$$ and finish this thing.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

If there is any similarity between this war and Vietnam it is the armchair quarterbacks trying to run the war from DC instead of letting the military kick a$$ and finish this thing

Agreed.

[Paul Ross]

Perhaps you should give Bush credit for hiring him in the first place and standing by him for years and years when a separation and scapegoating would have been the easy way out.

"Credit"? "Credit"???" B.S.

Just what do you think W is doing now?

W is taking the "easy way out" and "scapegoating"!

So Steve, you're obviously a 'Bot...you don't speak for us. You never did, Steve. You're no conservative.

Rumsfeld was the only conservative campaigner for defense in W's cabinet.

And W clearly ordered Rumsfeld to continue the defense procurement holiday. To limit all funding increases (until 9-11) to merely inflationary compensatory. And to continue the knee-capping of recapitalization. To decommission the MX's. To decommission half the B-1's. To chop the Navy down to half its size...(already cut down by 250+ ships under Xlinton, and further unilaterally cut by W yet another 65 ships of the line). To ignore the Pentagon's warnings we needed more ships and subs. [We need at least 66 Attack subs] Yet W ordered Rummy to decommission good ships and attack subs...with 15 years in their useful service lives wasted. To decommission aircraft carriers...when the Pentagon has warned we needed more. We need at least 15. To push for further retirements...to investigate justifying going down to only 9 carriers in just another 4 years. To decommission...without any replacement all of our naval air-superiority planes...the F-14 Tomcat. W Ordered Rummy to stonewall, delay and limit the F-22's deployment (the only real air superiority plane we have that can assure dominance)...limiting it to a meager 170-or 180 planes...and NO NAVAL VERSION. Retirement of the S-3 without replacement. No replacement of the lost ASW function that Xlinton killed. And no replacements of the aging KC-135 tankers. W let McCain sabotage KC-135 replacement and squander valuable time. To order the closing of NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain.

Result: Six years of treading water on strategic military procurement.

This was not managerial ineptitude. This was sabotage from the top. I know Rummy. He is among the best managers. He has had to be mortified. This had to be galling...and extremely bitter to him.

And perhaps most egregious of all...no real NMD deployed. Rumsfeld was clearly the most able, articulate, and dedicated advocate for a REAL missile defense. Indeed, the only one on W's team other than Cheney..who has been muzzled in his bunker. Rummy was not for a limited NMD, or ineffectual NMD. An NMD that is so constricted to please our enemies such as the KGB's Putin and the Communist despots in Red China.

But that is precisely what W ordered be done. Leaving in place Xlinton's anemic plan. Xlinton's scheme was always OBVIOUSLY designed to be so ineffectual that it would be easy to politically justify killing it outright later...if the RATs ever resumed control of Congress. (Which they now have). Scapegoating the very idea of NMD as a failure. As a waste of money in the first place...blaming the whole squandry on the IDEA of missile defense...not the deliberately inept execution of a defensive strategy or deployment.

And that goes for Naval NMD as well. W obviously ordered leaving in place Xlinton's limits on our Aegis missiles. So that they were too slow and too range-limited. W refused to fix them despite continued Navy persistence. And Rummy had to go along with W's continued Xlintonian sabotage. E.g., having Deputy Secretary Gordon England appointed ...who then immediately and arbitrarily eliminated without replacement the TBMD program. And refusing to budget the inexpensive fix for Aegis SM-3. The Mark 3 Flight IIa missiles, merely replacing an upper stage on the existing missiles].

With the NMD program restricted so as to be the practical equivalent of "lip-service"...and Not National in scope at all. Hence the complete vulnerability of the U.S. to this day to any of the rogue enemy country's being able to anonymously launch their missiles against the U.S. from ships off our shores.

This vulnerability was all pursuant W's orders. Donald Rumsfeld would never have dithered and dumbed things down.

And Rummy was kept SOLELY to keep pro-defense conservatives on board. The very moment that the last mid-term election was over, despite promises of keeping Rumsfeld to the end of the President's term...the axe dropped. Despite the promises. Despite the clear evidence that Rumsfeld has been effectual in the WOT. The actual war commanders all vindicated him...and disparaged the critics.

But W has obviously made the cold RINO calculation...that he no longer needs any conservatives at all in his Cabinet. And certainly not for defense. A defense he was never going to deploy. It had always been a political ruse to keep his conservative base.

But now he has his pro illegal alien amnesty allies controlling Congress and the Senate. He doesn't need...or want...any conservatives. W has a new "team". Serving, although not appreciated by a new political base. More congenial to his extreme liberal core beliefs which he has had to be covert and euphemistic about. A RAT base.

And Rummy instantly became "dispensable."

W was the one that needs to be thrown under the bus. And he and his ilk ...such as McCain...must have no role whatsoever in the Party in the future. They must be politically removed.

I am praying that Donald Rumsfeld has the courage and sense of duty to the Country to tell-all. How he was recruited for the express purpose supposedly of fixing defense...but obviously lied to and then ordered to hamstring our defenses. Rumsfeld needs to lay bare, and spell out for all conservatives how he was used to give W political cover.

[stevestras]

"I am praying that Donald Rumsfeld has the courage and sense of duty to the Country to tell-all. How he was recruited for the express purpose supposedly of fixing defense...but obviously lied to and then ordered to hamstring our defenses. Rumsfeld needs to lay bare, and spell out for all conservatives how he was used to give W political cover."

If he does not, I'm sure you will turn on him as well and blame him for not articulating exactly the position that you have already anchored your unreasonable mind to.

[B4Ranch]

Correct and well said.

[Paul Ross]

If he does not, I'm sure you will turn on him as well and blame him ...

No. But I would be disappointed. He is definitely old school.

He might feel honor-bound to keep W's secrets...even though he has proved unworthy of such honor.