I was always upset at him for not listening to the Army leadership more with respect to troop levels. I never put the blame directly on him for the armor and equipment issue as Clinton's cuts bear a lot of the blame, but Rummy's response to that question made me furious. And the reaction to that question (only now increasing Armored Humvee production), has made me believe that Rummy was to blame, at least partially, for the lack of armor and equipment anyway.
Then there was the condolance letters incident. That was just the icing on the cake. He needs to go. I stand by that. Many people in the military agree, but are not at liberty to say. You can't just talk to the generals, you have to talk to the soldiers. Almost all of them support Bush and this war, but numerous things that have been handled directly by Mr. Rumsfeld has not made them believe that the SecDef cares about them.
Again, I don't understand. How come Bush can't see what you see. Doesn't the fact that Bush thinks Rumsfeld is doing a good job and agrees with Rumsfeld's efforts to transform the Army make you reconsider your pretty strong opinions about Rumsfeld.
Finally, as far as the armoring of the Humvees is concerned isn't it true that approximately 90% of the Humvees those soldiers in Kuwait were getting were already armored I read a Q & A from one of the generals in charge of the logistics for those soldiers who said something like 800 out of the 816 Humvees they were getting were already armored. Does that make you change your opinion of Rumsfeld.
President Bush and Rummy have always said that they will give whatever the generals in Iraq request. WWII generals made a lot of mistakes before they got it right. If there had been all this critiscm then we would never have won the war. I am getting really tired of Monday morning quarterbacking on the war and the criticsm of those running for president in 2008.