Rumsfeld - the Man, the Myth, the Legend

I consider myself a well informed person. But, until I saw this segment on CNN People tonight, I just had no idea.

KRAMES: Even "The Washington Post" on September 7 was painting Rumsfeld as a dinosaur of the past, and even in that Washington Post" piece naming successors for the secretary.
MCINTYRE: Four days after that "Washington Post" piece, on September 11, the Pentagon and the whole country were jolted into a new reality.
KENNERLY: You know the day that the plane ran into his building; he was right out the door helping pull people out of the burning rubble. That's who he is. I mean that's not an act.
MCINTYRE: After helping on the scene, the secretary returned to his office to prepare a military response. Don Rumsfeld, crisis manager, was in his element.

In the segment, they showed a picture of Rumsfeld, a man in his seventies, helping to carry someone out on a stretcher. That is just freaking outstanding. I don't know why this isn't better known.

Of course, the segment ended with Spc Wilson's famous question about armor for his unit's Humvees, and the completely misleading clip of Rumsfeld's answer, where he is shown saying, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have and not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Here is his full response:

SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I’m told that they are being – the Army is – I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done. And it’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.

As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe – it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.

I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they’re working at it at a good clip. It’s interesting, I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who’ve been working on it hard at the Pentagon. And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on.

And General Whitcomb, is there anything you’d want to add to that?

GEN. WHITCOMB: Nothing. [Laughter] Mr. Secretary, I’d be happy to. That is a focus on what we do here in Kuwait and what is done up in the theater, both in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. As the secretary has said, it’s not a matter of money or desire; it is a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it. The 699th, the team that we’ve got here in Kuwait has done [Cheers] a tremendous effort to take that steel that they have and cut it, prefab it and put it on vehicles. But there is nobody from the president on down that is not aware hat this is a challenge for us and this is a desire for us to accomplish.

SEC. RUMSFELD: The other day, after there was a big threat alert in Washington, D.C. in connection with the elections, as I recall, I looked outside the Pentagon and there were six or eight up-armored humvees. They’re not there anymore. [Cheers] [Applause] They’re en route out here, I can assure you. Next. Way in the back. Yes.

What a terrible, insensitive, brusque response. What you can't read in the transcript is that the applause for Rumsfeld's response was much greater than that for Spc Wilson's question. Funny how the news coverage doesn't give you that impression.

I know this is old news, but the criticism of Rumsfeld's handling of the war is mostly inane. Should have had more troops? What troops? Where would they come from? And, unless those troops have X-ray vision, I don't see how they would stop suicide car bombers, hit and run mortar attacks, and IEDs. Shouldn't have disbanded the Iraqi army? That was Bremer's call, a State Department decision. And they had mostly dissolved in the aftermath of the invasion, anyway. Lack of an occupation plan? Howso? What should have been planned that wasn't?

Of course there are legitimate criticisms. Mostly on the hawk side, however - stopping Syria and Iran from supporting the insurgency, for example.

Anyway, here's hoping for a good result in tomorrow's elections. And here's hoping this superb leader stays on for another four years.