[SolidWood]

Rumsfeld was wrong on troop levels. Hindsight is 50/50 but the surge should have taken place earlier. Despite their unpopularity among many here on FR, McCain and Kristol were right on this all along.

[Gondring]

Rumsfeld was wrong on troop levels. Hindsight is 50/50 but the surge should have taken place earlier. Despite their unpopularity among many here on FR, McCain and Kristol were right on this all along.

You are right, SolidWood. Rumsfeld cost this country so very much. As inspiring as he was for the initial offensive operations, it would have been nice if he could have been a positive influence after...but he failed to appreciate the change in the situation, and his arrogant dismissal of the generals who did recognize the changing situation (remember the patronizing condescention against Gen. Pace?) kept us bogged down in ineffectiveness.

But remember that ultimately, it is the responsibility of George W. Bush. Sec. Rumsfeld offerred to resign, but Pres. Bush kept him on. If only the initial resignation had been accepted, we could be remembering Sec. Rumsfeld as having led a brilliant campaign to take Iraq, and thousands of Americans and Iraqis would still alive, with hundreds of billions of dollars saved, with Al Q on the ropes years sooner.

But then again, if Pres. Bush did not have such loyalty to his close associates, perhaps he wouldn't be where he is today...and we'd have had AlGore in there.

[DB]

One could argue that Iraq had to come to the low point that it did just prior the surge in order for there to be success overall. The blood letting that Arabs perpetrated on fellow Arabs that we refused to do ourselves when we invaded provided the public turning point against the barbarians among them. They were faced with the true cost of what the Islamist had planned for them or cooperation with us towards peace and self governance.