Rumsfeld Quietly Sidesteps General Franks With Proven Airborne Ranger Warfighter.

WashTimes "Inside Ring" | Gertz/Scarborough

[MindBender26]

Pentagon chatter says Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld finally has his own man at U.S. Central Command to supervise a war against Iraq: Army Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid.

Officials said the hard-charging Mr. Rumsfeld was not always happy with the way Gen. Tommy Franks ran the war in Afghanistan. He has worried that Gen. Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, will not be innovative enough in waging war against Iraq.

Now, however, Mr. Rumsfeld has plucked a general from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and sent him to Central Command as Mr. Franks' deputy. In fact, Gen. Abizaid is already at CentCom's warfighting command center in Qatar getting ready to direct a war.

It was an odd move, given that CentCom already had a deputy commander, who is staying at its Tampa headquarters. But it does give Mr. Rumsfeld a deputy in the Gulf region whom he fully trusts.

A favorite of the defense secretary, Gen. Abizaid is a West Point graduate and career infantryman who speaks fluent Arabic, a skill that should help with Persian Gulf allies.

He also speaks German and Italian, a skill that helped when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Germany in 1999-2000.

[VaBthang4]

I used to think Franks [Fred] was an idiot after his performance the Gulf War. But after reading all of the different books Shwarzkopf's and then the Clancy/Franks book [I think the title is "Into The Storm" or something like that]...I think Franks is an awesome asset to our military and the transformation that took place after vietnam...he was one of many brilliant and effective leaders that rose up during the cold war to form the echelon assault and force multiplication doctrine that we see performing today.

Great guy who could lead my Army any day.

[Matthew James]

Don't know him; but I agree that Rummie is working hard at finding people he can work with. He has plenty of enemies from the old Clinton crop of General Officers. Those guys are amazingly bold at trying to circumvent his policies behind the scenes.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Excellent analysis - thank you!

[MindBender26]

Awchie!!! Long time no FReep.

Grace Hopper was the best oifficer-level computer and science recruiter the Navy ever had. Covered her speech at Texas A&M once. It was great.

During speech, she held up a piece of wire. Think it was about a foot long. Said that was the distance electricity traveled in one nanosecond, so if you wasted a nanosecond in your life or your computer, that was how much you were wasting.

At end of talk, she gave those foot long wires out as memory of speech.

[MindBender26]

Yeah, but don't you want to hook the #3 wire?

[MindBender26]

Don't you just love hanging out with the bosses????

In 69/70 tour, got knee chopped up near Tay Ninh. They would not send me back to field for a while. Worked for Abrams as an "action officer." Westmoreland would send memos and DFs everywhere, expect replies from every level of command up and down along the way. He got CYA BS on top of BS.

Abrams wanted action.

Whenever there was a serious problem, such as abuse of troops, bad morale, theft of gmvt funds, bad medical care, really bad leadership, racial problems, etc., Abrams would send a team of two of us to check it out. Usually one E-8/E-9, very experienced, older WW2 vet who served with Abrams in Europe and one O-3/0-4 combat arms stud (the baddder-assed looking the better).

The NCO would go talk with the NCOs, I'd go see the officers. We'd both begin the interview with an EM. Who ever got the best rapport with the EM would finish the interview.

This system got the problems solved in 24 hours! Abrams once relieved a lying, troop wasting 2 star division commander and had him on freedom bird in 90 minutes!

Of course, Westy did look sooooo good in his dress whites at those nightly embassy parties.......

[Travis McGee]

Those guys are amazingly bold at trying to circumvent his policies behind the scenes.

Maybe Rumsfeld could hold a general level briefing, and then-- Saddam style-- call out a list of names while MPs come into the hall and drag them outside and shoot them.

Nah, I guess that wouldn't work so well, even though it has some merit.

[archy]

Whenever there was a serious problem, such as abuse of troops, bad morale, theft of gmvt funds, bad medical care, really bad leadership, racial problems, etc, Abrams would send a team of two of us to check it out. Usually one E-8/E-9, very experienced, older WW2 vet who served with Abrams in Europe and one O-3/O-4 combat arms stud (the badder-assed looking the better). ...

This system got the problem solved in 24 hours...

Not with SMAJ of the Army William O. Woolridge, it didn't. And so far as I know, for the slackoff officer responsible for him who let him get away with his crap, who never was relieved or reprimanded....

And Abrams really went over the line with his charges against Col Rheault and CPT Marasco and the other 5th Group SFers, charging them with murder for eliminating a NVA double [triple?] agent on CIA orders prior to the Operation Dewey Canyon invasioon of Cambodia. Since SF's pre invasion recon of objectives for that incursion and the *Operation Menu* location of likely airstrike targets were conducted by presidential order, the defense for the officers so charged could very well have resulted in an impeachment for LBJ had the war's congressional opponents found out then what was coming. Why LBJ didn't just do to Abrams what Truman did to MacArthur is above my pay grade, but I do know that some SF folks had a backup plan in the event anything had happened to any of those being held at Abram's orders while they were in custody. Aren't those helicopter crashes of senior officers tragic?

-archy-/-

[archy]

Maybe Rumsfield could hold a general level briefing, and then-- Saddam style-- call out a list of names while MPs come into the hall and drag them outside and shoot them.

Say what you will about Saddam, he at least pulls his own trigger when he eliminates those in his disfavour.

As for eliminating general officers, plane crashes seem to be the more acceptable way of taking care of command problems at the Code Seven level or above- and any Secretary of Commerce who might be inclined toward spilling the beans.

-archy-/-

[MindBender26]

Woolridge was a joke and a crook. He was also at DOD, not RVN.

As far as any SF Opn in the event of any events re: the bosses, it was a planned raid on LBJ, Long Bihn Jail, the USARV stockade. It never really got past the talking at the O-Club stage, despite rumors to the contrary.

[jeremiah]

It does sound like a good decision by Rummy, hope his confidence is well place. We need more men that KNOW what it is to fight.

[Hipixs]

Pentagon chatter says Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld finally has his own man at U.S. Central Command to supervise a war against Iraq: Army Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid.

According to Rumsfeld's press conference today, Gen. Franks requested that Gen. Abizaid be made Franks' deputy. "Pentagon chatter" is a laughable source, even below the level of an unamed official.

[MindBender26]

This was simply cover for Franks. He was NOT happy when Abizaid was moved into position. Franks did not want him. He did not want anyone in that position.

Today's statement was simply to reduce the embarassment for Franks.

[Hipixs]

From DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers

Rumsfeld: I'm going to finish my thought and then we're through.

Someone mentioned General Franks, or I did. I'm not -- I don't want to be critical of any one person or any newspaper, but we're going into a difficult period. And accuracy and precision on my part is important, and accuracy and precision on your parts is important. There's just an awful lot of mischief taking place around here.

I read an article that said that I overruled General Franks and -- because I was disagreeing, we were disagreeing, and I put General John Abizaid in as his deputy, so that we could keep track of what he's doing. That is absolute hogwash.

The truth is that what happened was that Paul Wolfowitz came to me and said that General Franks had come to him and said, "How do you think I could approach the Secretary of Defense about the possibility of my getting General Abizaid as my deputy, one of my deputies?"

And Paul said, "I don't know. He's not going to like it, because he likes him as director of the Joint Staff. He's doing a terrific job there. Dick Myers isn't going to like it, and Pete" -- (laughter) -- "and Pete Pace isn't going to like it. So you, General Franks, better figure out a way that you can make it so persuasive that you can get the secretary, the deputy secretary, the chairman and the vice chairman to agree to let this fine talent leave the Joint Staff" -- where he was doing tremendously important work and exceedingly well -- and go -- "and that he is the only one in the entire armed forces, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, that can do that job for you. And that's not going to be an easy sell," he told Franks.

So, General Franks comes sidling up to you and sidling up to me and sidling up to Paul, and we said, "No! We need him here." And so, he goes away, and he comes back a week and a half later and does it again. He sidles up to all of us and he was persuasive. And finally we said, "Well, maybe. But not now." And we kept delaying it.

---

So "Pentagon chatter" is more credible than Rumsfeld and by extension Myers, Wolfowitz and Pace who are all NAMED in this COVER story? Who are the sources [with names] behind the "Pentagon chatter"?

[VeniVidiVici]

(Kennedy)She spent most of her time as a staff puke, thanks be to God. The few times she had any authority, her subordinates despised her. "Screw the mission; beautify the position." was her motto.

HaHa! Did she do this in other places besides Augsburg?

She grew up (moved up) and became DCSI Army. Rumor in the late '90s had it that Hitlery wanted her to become DIRNSA when the Director at the time was going to retire. Even though I was out before then I still thank God it never happened.

[Lancey Howard]

If I recall, Boorda was spun dizzy by the PC campaign to feminize the military that the Scumbag Administration's panty-waste Pentagon was pushing.

By the way, did you know Bob Woodward in his Navy days? If I recall correctly, he knew or worked with Moorer (or maybe it was Butterfield?) in the '60s.

[archy]

Woolridge was a joke and a crook. He was also at DOD, not RVN.

As far as and SF Opn inthe event of any events re: the bosses, it was a planned raid on LBJ, Long Binh Jail, the USARV stockade. It never really got past the talking at the O-club stage, despite rumors to the contrary.

The raid *on the USARV stockade* was to have utilized two NVA RPD machineguns for shooting down the Huey helicopter it was flying in from Ton Son Nhut to visit MG Talbott at Lai Khe/III Corps, circa August,1969. I've heard some of the stories about a possible snatch of the prisoners/hostages [mentioned by Rothblatt, Rheault's defense attorney, who was the one willing to spill the beans about the coming Cambodian operations unless the charges were dropped, as they were.]

But the plan to see that Abrams got his share of any *accident* that befell Col. Rheault/Bob Marasco and the others while in custody was probably either independently developed by *the Captain from Algiers* or was compartmentalized to appear so-but certainly included at least some CIA foreknowledge, if not outright approval: an AA flight was to be available to evacuate any survivors, and once in Thailand, resettlement in a couple of other locations where CIA *leper colony* personnel had previously been stashed with success was to be arranged.

As for William Wooldridge, he was one of those good ol' boy WWII NCOs you'd mentioned, having made the North African and D-Day landings with the 1st Infantry, then serving as the 24 Infantry's CSM [which was got the CID investigators after him in the first place, following up on fraud and skimming from the 24th Infantry's club system in Munich and Augsburg] before Abrams endorsed him for MACV SMAJ- he'd also served with First Infantry in Vietnam, though I believe it was while the First's headshed was at Di An, and not as Division SMAJ- he was a Battalion or Brigade SMAJ then, then his tour in Germany with the 24th followed. The club scandals and PX goods black marketeering was bad enough, but when it was found that heroin was being shipped back to CONUS in the bodies of dead American soldiers transiting the USARV mortuary in Saigon, it really hit the fan, though narcotics trafficing charges weren't filed against CSM Woolridge or others of his *khaki mafia* so far as I know....and, if they had been, I doubt it would have just been enlisted men whose careers would have gone down the tubes, though Wooldridge's name and face still appear glowingly on Army PIO *I-love-me* photos of current and former CSM of the Army photo montages.

Creighton Abram's *good old boy* pal William Wooldridge is the one at the top left. When Abrams was Vice-Chief of Staff of the Army, CSMJ Woolridge was the Army's senior enlisted man.

-archy-/-

[MindBender26]

I'm not married
The check is in the mail
Jessie jackson only wants what's best for all Americans
General Franks wanted LTG Abizaid but Rummy was agaisnt it.

Trust me on this one. Gertz and Scarborough are wired in so well at DOD that if lightening hit the building, and those two writers were in Fiji, they would still get singed hair.

This was simply what Rummy felt was a needed appointment.

Take a look at the original notes, re" Warfighters v. Politicos." Both are needed, but both have their discrete places in battle. Franks is as good man. Commissioned from a good progran at Ft. Sill a few months behind me. As good as he may be, he is not a warfighter. He is a staff type.

More than that, Rummy has personal faith in Abizaid, a level of faith he does not have in Franks. Nothing against the Franks. Any decent general, given our level of superiority over Saddam's forces could win the upcomming battle.

Rummy simply wanted his man in there and that man is Abizaid, not Franks, and there is no way Franks wanted a hand-charging deputy there to steal his thunder.

The curret disinformatziatta re "It was Franks idea" was simply cover from Franks, and it places Franks further in debt to Rummy.

[MindBender26]

..... and then there was McKinney!

[A Simple Soldier]

He retired (in protest) when Congress mandated the admission of women to the service academies in 1975.