Tough times for Rummy
Having failed to defeat his boss, Democrats are gunning for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And some Republicans have joined in the chorus.
When the Abu Ghraib scandal hit, I called for Sec. Rumsfeld's resignation- not because he was to blame, but because it was the obvious way to salvage the credibility of the chain of command. But the current flap- initiated by a National Guardsman's embarassing questions of Mr. Rumsfeld, which turned out to have been planted by a reporter- miss the point that Sec. Rumsfeld's focus has been on modernizing the Army into a modern, fast, mobile force- a goal that doesn't place a high priority on heavily armoring military vehicles, the focus of the current criticism.
It seems reasonable to say that the priority should be a great deal higher. But despite the criticism even of Republicans like Sen. John McCain and Sen. Trent Lott, that doesn't add up to the desirability of the resignation of one of the strongest Secretaries of Defense in history.
BTW, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), one of the Secretary's defenders quoted in the article, has impressed me for some time. We could do worse than Sen. Graham as our Presidential nominee in 2008.
When the Abu Ghraib scandal hit, I called for Sec. Rumsfeld's resignation- not because he was to blame, but because it was the obvious way to salvage the credibility of the chain of command. But the current flap- initiated by a National Guardsman's embarassing questions of Mr. Rumsfeld, which turned out to have been planted by a reporter- miss the point that Sec. Rumsfeld's focus has been on modernizing the Army into a modern, fast, mobile force- a goal that doesn't place a high priority on heavily armoring military vehicles, the focus of the current criticism.
It seems reasonable to say that the priority should be a great deal higher. But despite the criticism even of Republicans like Sen. John McCain and Sen. Trent Lott, that doesn't add up to the desirability of the resignation of one of the strongest Secretaries of Defense in history.
BTW, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), one of the Secretary's defenders quoted in the article, has impressed me for some time. We could do worse than Sen. Graham as our Presidential nominee in 2008.
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