Rumsfeld continues to remind me of another Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara. Both Ivy league know it alls, both know more than just about anyone else, both initiated a stupid strategy (Mac with bombing halts, Rumsfeld with not having a government in place after driving Saddam out of power), and both after they left office and found that the public did not favor the war and it did not turn out well, decide to turn on the policy they crafted, demean the leaders they served it to, and do all they can to get accepted once more at the Georgetown cocktail parties. I remember McNamara, after he wrote his odious, lying book about Vietnam, claiming “I was against it”!! He was “against it”?? He was the FATHER OF IT!
zero for that entire post....
Rummy has the distinction of being a bad Sec Of Defense not once but twice in two critical times in military history. Both times our troops paid the price for it.
When W appointed Rummy as Sec of Defense I thought to myself he can't be serious about this. His previous tenure as Sec of Def was a disaster. A person can not honestly discuss The Carter Hollow Military Era without also factoring in Rummy's damage done in the Ford administration beforehand. The military in February 1977 was in shambles. AWOL's were high as was Desertion. Morale was low though LOL. If you wanted out of the service it was real easy. Just go AWOL 31 days and report elsewhere. 31 days got you declared a deserter. You got a General DC and would be home in less than a month. He was going to try that crap again under Bush.
Under his first tenure even 16 year vested Lifers were leaving and even more so under Carter. I can not forgive Rummy's Apathy nor Gates for the deliberate apathy of the persecution of our troops serving in the Middle East. That sealed his & Gates legacy IMO as ranking up there with McNamara as all time worst Sec of Defense.
Don't get me wrong Carter is the second most incompetent POTUS in US history second only to Obama. But I do recall Navy wise thing began a slow turnaround in about late 1978 as far as addressing issues I mentioned went.
Iraq was not ready for self government sad to say. Iraq would have been served better by a Benign to allies Dictatorship sort of like Tito who held the lid on Post WW2 Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia under Tito was not a place a freedom loving person would wanted to have lived {I saw it twice back in the late 1970's} but it wasn't a threat to others either as it was not Warsaw Pact.