4 Leading Military Papers: 'Rumsfeld Must Go'

BBB
Can Bush overcome a revolt within his military and keep Rumsfeld?

BBB

The most incompetent president of our country says that about all his choices; "he's doing a good job." Remember what he said about Tenet and Browne?

I believe it a bad precedent to allow the military to select their own civilian leadership.

Drew Dad, Since when did they(military) select their own civilian leadership? That's news to most of us!

Seems like the Generals felt in 1999 that even 400,000 troops might not be enough. Obviously Rummy disagreed. Looks like the Generals were right. "1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq"

By JOHN HEILPRIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.

In its "Desert Crossing" games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.

The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.

"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."

There are currently about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak of about 160,000 in January.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, which sponsored the seminar and declassified the secret report in 2004, declined to comment Saturday because she was not familiar with the documents.

The war games looked at "worst case" and "most likely" scenarios after a war that removed then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. Some are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:

-"A change in regimes does not guarantee stability," the 1999 seminar briefings said. "A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability."

-"Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic - especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments."

-"Iran's anti-Americanism could be enflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq," the briefings read. "The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad."

-"The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development."

-"Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government."

-"A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Iraq_War_Games.html

White House Calls Editorials Urging Rumsfeld Exit 'Shabby'
White House Calls Editorials Urging Rumsfeld Exit 'Shabby'
By E&P Staff
Published: November 05, 2006

The White House is dismissing fresh calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ouster, calling an editorial in leading newspapers for the military "a shabby piece of work."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Saturday the president has shrugged off an editorial by the Military Times Media Group, which publishes the Army Times, Marine Times, Air Force Times and Navy Times, calling for Bush to fire Rumsfeld. Bushs feels it is merely "grandstanding," he added. The editorial says Rumsfeld has "lost credibility" with top officers.

Snow called the editorial "a caricature" and a "shabby piece of work" filled with inaccuracies. He said it implied the administration's made nothing but "rosy" predictions about Iraq. Snow said that isn't true, leading the president to "shrug it off."

He also charged that the military papers, produced for military personnel by a subsidiary of Gannett, are biased, in that Gannett does not -- he said -- have a single newspaper with a conservative editorial page. This is not true, however.

Here is the relevant portion of transcript from Saturday's briefing.
*

MR. SNOW: I mean, observation number one is everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. And as a factual matter, the editorial -- which is a uniform editorial that I guess all the papers are being told to carried -- is just -- it's a shabby piece of work. I'll run through some of it for you.

The other important thing to note is this -- although these are Army Times and the Military Times, they're a Gannett publication. A lot of people are thinking, aha, what you have are a lot of military people in open revolt against the President, when, in fact, you've got a lot of Gannett editorial writers, which would be thoroughly consistent with USA Today and the rest of the Gannett chain, which I think, if memory serves, does not have a single strong conservative editorial page in the entire chain.

Hang on a second, I've got a printout of it, because I went through the thing. Give me a moment. The editorial, for one thing, makes the allegation that -- it says, "One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld." That's just flat not true. And what they do is they revert to cheesy old partisan talking points about "mission accomplished," which, as you recall, was referring to the mission of the USS Abraham Lincoln and the President, on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, talked about a long, hard fight to come, and so on.

But maybe the worst is this, it says, "A new course of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning." It then goes on to site General John Abizaid completely out of context, when he said before Congress -- he said, "I believe the sectarian violence probably is as bad as I've seen it. It's possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

The following month General Casey said -- let's see, a couple of things. First, he said that, "A, I think we can prevent a civil war. Secondly, things in a counter-insurgency environment, as you well know, take time to mature militarily and politically, and we're confident that with the measures we're taking now we can be successful."

General Casey also said recently, "The situation is hard, but Iraq is not a country that's awash in sectarian violence. I think it's important to remind people that 90 percent of the sectarian violence in Iraq takes place in about a 30-mile radius from the center of Baghdad, and, secondly, that 90 percent of all violence takes place in five provinces."

There is also the notion in here -- in this editorial -- let me get this a little neater, because I keep flipping back and forth. Here we go, sorry. Here's another one, "Despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition." Again, dramatically at odds with what we've been seeing on the ground in Iraq, especially with a unity government that is making aggressive moves toward tamping down sectarian violence and also building a sense of national unity -- yet, 12 million people vote.

So what you have in here is sort of a caricature -- just today, almost in direct defiance of what the editorial is asserting, you had militias going in -- you had Iraqi police going in and, according to one report, taking down 53 al Qaeda members. Now, that's precisely the sort of thing that we've been talking about from the beginning, which is training up and making battle capable not only the Iraq security forces, but also Iraqi police forces.

Q Has the President seen or been told about the editorials?

MR. SNOW: He's been told about the editorial.

Q His reaction?

MR. SNOW: His reaction was just to sort of shrug it off. I mean, he understands what editorial writers sometimes do, and in this case, they're grandstanding. The notion that somehow, as the editorial says, that this is not intended to influence the elections -- you've got to be kidding me. I mean, if they didn't want it to influence the elections, they could have published it Wednesday.

In addition, they clearly skipped school last week when General Caldwell was giving the weekly briefing, talking about the metrics in Baghdad and around Iraq. And I had laid that out before in a press briefing, as well.

Q We know what the President said in the interview with the wire services last week, and that was he was doing a fine job. But couldn't things change after the elections, depending on how they go?

MR. SNOW: The President is Commander-in-Chief. At any time he can make military decisions, and will do so; but he's expressed his confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I mean, look, the more important thing in this editorial is just the fact that it gives the false impression that there is this -- Americans are going to read this and they're going to say, oh, the Army Times is against this and the Navy Times and so on -- that somehow that there is a reaction against the President by military personnel. This is by editorial writers who work in Arlington, Virginia.

Snow is struggling greatly to "stay the course," but is failing like Iraq. He's a good "soldier," but he has lost his ethics and brains.

I'd be interested in timber and mysteryman's take on this.

They haven't. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusioin that I believe they have.

I'm dubious of the editorials, however. Not that I disagree with the content. But are these written by active service military?

DD, Opinions about the military can come from anybody that wishes to compliment or criticize it; it's called "democracy."

I think under UCMJ, an officer cannot critisize the commander in chief, not that I spent much time studying it. The restriction may well not apply here, but DrewDad makes a good point on who is working for whom.

I was curious about who the editor(s) of these papers report to - and where they got the information they're basing their editorial on.

Not quite as easy a project as I'd thought.

roger, You may be correct about UCMJ; I was just generalizing. I seem to rememer recent criticisms from active military, but I wouldn't put any money on it.

these newspapers are part of the "gannet" chain - "usa today" .
hbg

Heard two pieces on the radio about this tonight.

An "expert" (in the field of media and advertising) on one of them commented that these papers are primarily ways to get advertising to the active military market and that he didn't believe they'd print anything which would reduce readership - and therefore reduce advertising $$.

<shrug>

Dunno, but it was an angle I hadn't considered in this particular story.

Editors report to publishers, ehBeth. The publisher always has the ultimate say.

Eva, I'm aware of that.

I was trying to get to something more specific - who's in control of the Gannet Group. I was able to determine through Editor and Publisher that the Gannet Group publishes mags/papers on both edges of the U.S. political fence. I want more. Digging continues.

<one more occasion when I wish we had a media forum>

Army Times Publishing Company
Army Times Publishing Company is a United States company which published publications regarding the US military. Founded in 1940, it was purchased by the Gannett Company in August 1997. They publish four weekly newspapers geared towards current and former US military personel, collectively called the Military Times Media Group: Army Times (founded 1940), Navy Times (founded 1951), Air Force Times (founded 1947), and Marine Corps Times. They also publish via the Defense News Media Group: Defense News, Armed Forces Journal (founded in 1863), Training & Simulation Journal and C4ISR - The Journal of Net-Centric Warfare. The company also publishes Federal Times.

Gee... How profound.

(Aren't you referring to freedom of expression?)