# Donald Rumsfeld Resigns



## Blackadder1916 (4 Nov 2006)

*Military Papers: ‘Rumsfeld Must Go’ 
Editorial Comes Days After Bush Affirms Defense Secretary’s Job Security* 
MSNBC staff and news service reports   Updated: 11:28 a.m. MT Nov 4, 2006 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15552211/


> Just days after President Bush publicly affirmed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's job security through the end of his term, a family of publications catering to the military will publish an editorial calling for the defense secretary's removal.
> 
> The editorial, released to NBC News on Friday ahead of its Monday publication date, stated, "It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads."
> 
> ...



Text of the Army Times (et al) editorial is at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15552388/

I remember the Army Times and its sister publicatons from my service in Germany and Texas, thus, it has been years since I have seen a copy.  While their editorial position was not always pro administration, its usual line tended to stay within the context of more benefits for the troops.  This seems to be a big leap for them.  What's next, a similiar editorial in the Stars and Stripes?


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## tomahawk6 (4 Nov 2006)

Stars and Stripes is funded by DoD. The Army Times defintely supports the democrats in their editorials and some of their stories. I thought long and hard before I renewed my subscription last month. Rumsfeld will stay in office until this administration leaves office in Jan 09.


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## DBA (5 Nov 2006)

Taken from elsewhere but I think sums it up well : "The bottom line is that the “Military Times” weekly papers are not professional publications, circulation is collapsing, and the staff is shared with USAToday."


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## cplcaldwell (8 Nov 2006)

From CBC.ca, Shared under the Fair Dealing Provisions of the Copyright Act, RSC.

Rumsfeld resigns as U.S. defence secretary
*Last Updated: Wednesday, November 8, 2006 | 1:09 PM ET 
CBC News * 

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has overseen the execution of the unpopular war in Iraq, is stepping down after Democrats made major gains in mid-term elections.

President George W. Bush confirmed Rumsfeld's resignation at a news conference at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Rumsfeld, who held the post for six years, will be succeeded by former CIA director Robert Gates, Bush said.

Until then, Bush had said he would keep Rumsfeld, who has overseen the execution of the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq, for the next two years.

Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesman for Rumsfeld said he had given no indication that he would step down in the wake of Democratic gains in Tuesday's election.

The spokesman said Rumsfeld would work with Congress on Iraq but added that the focus on stabilizing the country will remain the same.

More to come


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## Dare (8 Nov 2006)

cplcaldwell said:
			
		

> From CBC.ca, Shared under the Fair Dealing Provisions of the Copyright Act, RSC.
> 
> Rumsfeld resigns as U.S. defence secretary
> *Last Updated: Wednesday, November 8, 2006 | 1:09 PM ET
> ...


Dodging the Democrat kangaroo court.
Smart play. It amuses me to see how upset it made the left that he resigned before they could get their licks in. They set up the Rumsfeld as the target and the target moved before the shots fired. 

I'll miss one of the few direct and honest politicians.


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## sigpig (8 Nov 2006)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Rumsfeld will stay in office until this administration leaves office in Jan 09.





			
				tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> I suspect that next week after the dust has settled the republicans will have sizeable majorities which will send a powerful message to our enemies.



Forgive me, but there hasn't been much for us leftist/communist/freedom hating/terrorist loving/america hating types to be cheerful about the last few years. 

Guess that's about to change.....


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## old medic (8 Nov 2006)

Keep things respectful please.


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## Kirkhill (8 Nov 2006)

sigpig said:
			
		

> Forgive me, but there hasn't been much for us leftist/communist/freedom hating/terrorist loving/america hating types to be cheerful about the last few years.
> 
> Guess that's about to change.....



You may be right, more's the pity.  What was the turnout like in Fort Lauderdale?


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## sigpig (8 Nov 2006)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> You may be right, more's the pity.  What was the turnout like in Fort Lauderdale?



2006 General Election
Registered Voters: 923,647
Ballots Cast: 408,637
Voter Turnout: 44.24 %

Pretty good for around here. The county voted almost totally democratic, including 63% for the dem governor candidate vs 32% for the repub winner.


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## sigpig (8 Nov 2006)

old medic said:
			
		

> Keep things respectful please.



Please don't tell me my post can be taken as disrespectful.


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## Fishbone Jones (8 Nov 2006)

sigpig said:
			
		

> Please don't tell me my post can be taken as disrespectful.



No one was pointing fingers. The Mod is simply doing their job. Heed and leave it be.


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## Mike Baker (8 Nov 2006)

> U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has overseen the execution of the unpopular war in Iraq, is stepping down in the wake of major Democratic gains in the mid-term elections.
> 
> President George W. Bush made the announcement early Wednesday afternoon, as Democrats emerged from the previous day's ballots with a solid majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a narrow lead in the final undecided race they must win to control the Senate.
> 
> ...


More at http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/11/08/midterm-analysis.html

Never thought that it would happen so soon.


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## tamouh (8 Nov 2006)

> Never thought that it would happen so soon.



Actually, a political analyst **I'll get you the name...** on CBC last night predicted this would happen as it happened under ** validating **. The former US Ambassador Gordon Giffin argued the Bush administration is different and even if the Dems win House+Senate, he predicted it won't happen. I guess Lessons from History still stands out!


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## Journeyman (8 Nov 2006)

tamouh said:
			
		

> Actually, a political analyst on CBC last night predicted this would happen as it happened under *President Baker*.



 ??? Who?


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## aesop081 (8 Nov 2006)

Journeyman said:
			
		

> ??? Who?



Allow me Journeyman......

Tamouth :

James Baker was secretary of state for President Bush ( senior) ............put the revisionist history books away there  slick  :


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## tomahawk6 (8 Nov 2006)

Well overdue.The best line I heard about Rumsfeld was said by General Meyer at his retirement ceremony,
"Secretary Rumsfeld has been SECDEF in two different centuries". ;D


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## a_majoor (9 Nov 2006)

A thought:

This election was pushed in the MSM as a referendum on the handling of the War in Iraq. How do the Democrats propose to win the war? Anyone..........Anyone.............Bueller?


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## Kirkhill (9 Nov 2006)

Don't know what they are going to do about Iraq - but it should make for some interesting conversations when Michael Moore steps into the room....



> They wear cowboy boots, chew tobacco, love hunting, hate abortion, want less government spending — and some voted for Ronald Reagan. Now they are headed to Congress as Democrats....
> 
> Jon Tester, the Democrat’s Senate candidate in Montana.... a Democrat who is an anti-abortion, pro-gun, three-generation farmer with a buzz cut, three missing fingers on his left hand and no big fan of Hillary Clinton.....
> 
> ...



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2444457,00.html



> The Times November 09, 2006  Meet the Blue Dogs: pro-gun, anti-abortion - and Democrat By Tim Reid


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## Bert (9 Nov 2006)

Stratfor makes a Rumsfeld summary and suggests an affect on the American military.

Geopolitical Diary: Rumsfeld's Legacy
www.stratfor.com

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned on Wednesday after the Democrats succeeded in securing a majority hold on the U.S. House of Representatives in midterm elections.

Rumsfeld is perhaps among the most visionary defense secretaries who have served in the U.S. government, but that hardly has made him an effective one -- and it certainly has not stopped him from being a political liability.

Rumsfeld's primary goal, and the reason that U.S. President George W. Bush brought him into the government in the first place, was to bring about a seminal shift in the shape of the U.S. military. He sought to skip over an entire generation of military hardware -- such as the F-22, which is only now entering the military's toolkit -- and instead focus on the development of fundamentally new technologies, so that 20 years from now the United States would be fielding technology two generations ahead of any potential foes.

Part and parcel of this change would be a massive reduction in the size of the military, with the army suffering the largest cuts in manpower and resources. There would be a corresponding emphasis on light, highly mobile forces with high-tech capabilities such as long-range hypersonic cruise missiles, smart drones and the ability to insert small forces anywhere in the world at a moment's notice.

Rumsfeld's biggest failing was not his plan, or even his execution of it. It was that reality intervened, in the form of the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war, and he refused to shift course in midstream. Rumsfeld was designing a military that could defeat state power by the precise applications of force while minimizing the exposure of U.S. forces; but the U.S.-jihadist war brought to the table a foe that thrived in chaotic regions where state control was weak or nonexistent. Rumsfeld's plan could overturn the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's government, but it could not muster the manpower necessary to impose order on the resulting chaos. Without sufficient "boots on the ground," the United States has proven unable to deny militants the environment in which they thrive.

The nature of the war the United States found itself fighting changed, and Rumsfeld demonstrated over and over that he lacked the ability to change with it.

His replacement, former CIA director Robert Gates, is in theory being brought in specifically to implement the very changes that Rumsfeld for the longest time refused to admit were necessary. Gates is part of the Iraq Study Group, a cadre of senior statesmen who have been out of government for over a decade -- he left government in 1993 -- recently tasked to come up with alternatives to the current Iraq strategy.

Their recommendations will be interesting to read, and Gates' efforts to implement them will be fascinating to watch. Congressional confirmation for Gates should come very easily and quickly -- he has no great political ambitions and is on the team that is supposed to come up with non-ideological recommendations for the way forward.

But what he will not be doing is prepping the United States for the next threat. Gates is a placeholder -- a competent placeholder for sure, but a placeholder nonetheless. Facing a hostile Congress, the Bush administration has sharp limitations on its actions and we will be seeing no revolutionary proposals from a defense secretary who will be in his job a maximum of two years.

The irony is that, instead of leaping ahead by a generation, U.S. forces have now been saddled with the worst of both worlds: an exhausted military that will take years to repair, and limited progress in the modernization that they will likely need a generation from now.



Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409


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## Kirkhill (9 Nov 2006)

> Rumsfeld's plan could overturn the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's government, but it could not muster the manpower necessary to impose order on the resulting chaos. Without sufficient "boots on the ground," the United States has proven unable to deny militants the environment in which they thrive.



I agree entirely that the US military (not just Rumsfeld's plan) is well designed to destroy conventional forces and overturn governments. I also agree it couldn't muster sufficient boots on the ground.  That is why the Brits (with their infantry heavy army - relatively speaking) were such a necessary addition and why Canada would have been welcome in Iraq and is welcome in Afghanistan.

I disagree that the problem is entirely of Rumsfeld's making.  Clinton reduced the number of divisions - reducing boots on the ground.  The Army opted for mechanics over infanteers by deciding to eliminate light divisions and stick with Tanks, Bradley's and Helicopters.  Even light troops were only saved when Shinseki found more jobs for mechanics by getting the Stryker for them.

It's not just Rumsfeld that has been pitching technology over man-power.  That has been the battle-cry of the US military establishment (and by extension NATO) since WW2.

The west has armed forces that assume peace is normal and war is an aberration.  Your average policeman can tell you different.  Peace has to be maintained.  It requires constant effort, constant struggle, constant fighting, to keep trouble makers from disturbing the peace.  With nation-states we had large entities which if they didn't maintain the peace internally, then at least they contained the disorder within their borders.  Unfortunately, while this reduced the number of actors on the world stage making negotiations easier it also made the consequences of failed negotiations that much more potentially catastrophic.  Also unfortunately there was no guarantee that we would approve of the way the locals maintained the peace. 

The one thing that has remained constant however, and this is true of policing neighbourhoods in Canada or in Kandahar - the only way to maintain the peace is to have people, on the street, on their feet, willing to impose the government's order and the rule of law.  And that requires boots - boots that weren't there in 1939 in the US but were disbanded in 1945.  In 1939 the Brits had the boots available, many of the occupied by Indians, Africans, Fijians etc, but after 1945 most of those boots were either disbanded or else were released to attack each other.


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## Bobby Rico (10 Nov 2006)

Not a fan of Rumsfeld.  I agree with the ascertation that there were too many instances during the past three or so years since the Iraq War started that he should have heeded warnings and taken advice presented to him by his military commanders.  The fact was, he was not utilizing them- and as far as I'm concerned, he had no exit strategy for Iraq.  I recall reading a statement he made that he felt the war wouldn't last more than six months, and I feel that his entire plan of operations was designed around that initial assessment- and then when things started to go south of cheese over there (or at the very least, not according to the 'schedule' Rumsfeld had for Iraq), he really had no particular idea of what to do next.  The whole 'staying the course' mentality is proof of that.  Stay the course- you mean do exactly what we're doing now, and have been doing for the past 3 years, which proven counter-productive, given that the violence in that nation continues to increase.

Well, I hope the new guy that's taking over Rummys job is up to the task of coming up with some new material on this war, because Rumsfeld stuff was getting pretty weak.


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## Cliff (10 Nov 2006)

Bobby Rico said:
			
		

> Well, I hope the new guy that's taking over Rummys job is up to the task of coming up with some new material on this war, because Rumsfeld stuff was getting pretty weak.



I realize military experience may not count for much today in many government slots, but for a defense secretary it certainly couldn't hurt. I might be wrong, but I don't think his replacement Gates has ever served in the military.


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## tomahawk6 (10 Nov 2006)

Gates will be a caretaker until a new President assumes office in 09. Gates will execute the Baker plan for drawing down US forces in Iraq. I dont see a total withdrawal maybe a reduction to one division's worth of troops.I see this drawdown occuring by early 08 to take Iraq off the table as a campaign issue.


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## vonGarvin (10 Nov 2006)

a_majoor said:
			
		

> A thought:
> 
> This election was pushed in the MSM as a referendum on the handling of the War in Iraq. How do the Democrats propose to win the war? Anyone..........Anyone.............Bueller?


Simple
They'll send in F.A.G., because they know all

(Film Actors' Guild, naturally.  When I say "fag", I don't mean anything as nasty as cigarettes)


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## Bobby Rico (11 Nov 2006)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Gates will be a caretaker until a new President assumes office in 09. Gates will execute the Baker plan for drawing down US forces in Iraq. I dont see a total withdrawal maybe a reduction to one division's worth of troops.I see this drawdown occuring by early 08 to take Iraq off the table as a campaign issue.



Yeah, that's pretty much what I figure Gates is there for- Rumsfelds resignation I see as a lot of political posturing on the Republican's part (primarily George Bush's republican camp).  They're saving face by giving Rummy the heave-ho (even though he officially resigned, I think the Bush camp pretty much demanded it from him).  I really don't see a lot coming out of Gates.  He's CIA, and traditionally the civil intelligence community and the military community have not exactly shared the same views on things.

And I'm definitely in agreement with you Cliff.  As far as I'm concerned, it should be MANDATORY for Defence secretaries (and in our case, ministers of defence) to have some real military experience.  A pipe dream I know...but I think a pretty darn good one.


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## a_majoor (12 Nov 2006)

A good article 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-kagan12nov12,0,3425133.story?track=tothtml



> *Rumsfeld's self-inflicted wounds*
> The outgoing defense secretary was too focused on transforming the military, and failed to plan for achieving political goals in Iraq.
> By Frederick W. Kagan
> Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military."
> ...



In one sense I wonder if Rumsfeld wasn't correct after all, we do need a massive change in the way we identify targets and communicate information throughout the battlefield. I think the best way to look at this is the sensor and communication system is mostly in place, but it is still connected to a "heavy metal" army force structure, which is inflexible and unable to deal with either the information presented or effectively engage an asymmetrical enemy in an effective manner. This is something professional soldiers and historians will debate for generations.


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## Kirkhill (12 Nov 2006)

In another thread it has been mentioned that industrial or manufacturing efficiency results in lay-offs.  The Heavy Metal battle is the result of industrial age technologies.  Nobel's Dynamite, Krupp's Cannon, Diesel's Engine, Marconi's Radio, Ford's Assembly line, trucks, tanks, cannons, backhoes,...... When they were introduced they resulted in massive numbers of jobs.  The jobs are disappearing as fewer people are able to do more with exactly the same stuff but more electronics doing the routine.  Machines stuffing beer into cases  and rounds into boxes instead of people doing them.  Machines driving trucks around factory floors with no drivers.

Those industrial age tools were the tools that won WW1 and WW2 and bankrupted the Soviet Union.  They worked as long as there were targets to find.  When the other guy lines up all his toys on the battlefield like a kid playing soldiers in the living room then it is easy to find the targets.  Then all you need to do is keep throwing bullets until you run out of targets.

But as I have been saying for a while soldiering isn't just about targets.  It is about person to person interaction.  It is about soldiers meeting people who may or may not want to kill them.

It is no coincidence that in the modern world, while factory, industrial age jobs are decreasing service jobs, those jobs that put people in touch with people, jobs like clerks, nurses, doctors and policemen are on the rise.   Machines can make thousands of explosive widgets and fire them to the ends of the earth in minutes.  

But it still requires someone, an individual, brave enough to walk up to another individual, look them in the eye and decide whether this person should live or die.  That one on on interaction demands people, eyeballs, brains and boots.  It demands infanteers and cavalrymen (cavaliers?).

We don't need as many people to deliver bullets to destroy targets as we did in WW1.  We can see farther and communicate better and move faster to get to trouble spots.  But you can't see what the other guy's intention is until you engage him one to one.

We don't need as many machinery operators as we did in the past.  We need skilled engineers and maintenance people although low cost, self-diagnosing, disposable, plug'n'play electronics limits their need.  That has an impact on Armour, Artillery, Logistics, Sigs.   We need fewer people there - not that we don't need them we just need fewer of them.

By contrast we still need infanteers, mounted infanteers/mounted rifles/dragoons/cavalrymen, policemen, medics, administrators.  That is where you need manpower.  Those, especially the infantry and cavalry, are precisely the areas where modern armies have been cutting.  Those are the people necessary to impose order.  Blowing things up creates chaos.  People build.  People create order out of chaos.  Armies need people.  Armies need soldiers.


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