United States: The retired commander of key US forces in Iraq has called for secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military commanders who have harshly criticised his authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.
"I think we need a fresh start," retired army Maj Gen John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-05, said in an interview on Wednesday. "We need leadership up there [ at the top of the Pentagon] that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."
Maj Gen Batiste noted that many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the department of defence," he said in another interview earlier on CNN.
Maj Gen Batiste's comments resonate within the army because it is widely known that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the number two US military officer there, but declined because he no longer wished to serve under Mr Rumsfeld. Also, before going to Iraq he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the senior military assistant to Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defence.
Maj Gen Batiste said he believes the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Maj Gen Batiste has said he thinks the violation of another military principle - that there must be an adequate number of forces - helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.
His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Mr Rumsfeld by three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their peers feel the same way.
"We won't get fooled again," retired marine Lt Gen Gregory Newbold, who held the key post of director of operations on the staff of the joint chiefs of staff from 2000 to 2002, wrote in an essay in Time magazine this week. Listing a series of mistakes such as "McNamara-like micromanagement", a reference to the Vietnam war-era secretary of defence, Lt Gen Newbold called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach".
Last month, another top officer who served in Iraq, retired army Maj Gen Paul Eaton, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he called Mr Rumsfeld "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically". Maj Gen Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi army troops in 2003-04, said "Mr Rumsfeld must step down".
And retired marine Gen Anthony Zinni, a longtime critic of Mr Rumsfeld and the administration's handling of the Iraq war, has been more vocal lately as he publicises a new book. "The problem is that we've wasted three years" in Iraq, said Gen Zinni, who was chief of the US central command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, in the late 1990s.
On Tuesday Gen Peter Pace, who is the first marine to serve as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, attempted to stamp down the revolt of the retired generals. No officers were muzzled during the planning of the invasion of Iraq, he said. "We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "The articles that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong."
Other retired generals said they think it is unlikely that the denunciations of Mr Rumsfeld and his aides will cease. "A lot of them are hugely frustrated", in part because Mr Rumsfeld gave the impression that "military advice was neither required nor desired" in the planning for the Iraq war, said retired Lt Gen Wallace Gregson, who until last year commanded marine forces in the Pacific. He said he is sensing much anger among Americans over the administration's handling of the war, and thinks the continuing barrage of criticism from military professionals will fuel that anger as the November mid-term elections approach.
- (LA Times-Washington Post service)