Rumsfeld' Future

Some of Rumsfeld's decisions have proved disastrously wrong, and he can not reconcile what he thought would happen in Iraq and what actually happened .His state of denial can only compound the problems his decisions created.

Fact remains that not enough troops were sent to prevent the chaos and looting in the power vacuum after the invasion, except for the ministry of oil and oil fields. One glaring example: the military didn't secure Saddam's huge stockpiles of munitions, despite knowing their location, which have been cornered by the Resistance. Rumsfeld underestimated the nature and strength of the resistance, dismissing them as a bunch of "dead-enders" which was mere wishful thinking than analysis based on history, culture or psychology. He can also be rightly accused of bad guidance on the treatment of prisoners resulting in Guantanamo , the Abu Gharib , rendition of prisoners ,which has severely damaged US reputation every where. His stonewalling and failure to hold anyone of high rank accountable only made it worse.

So far, only one high-ranking officer from the Air Force has spoken out against Rumsfeld, because he promotes air force prominence .This also explains Gen Myers' loyalty and his lack of proper understanding of post invasion scenario on the ground which is the domain of the Army specially the ground troops .This was brought out clearly in different perceptions between him and Gen Shinseki.

I remember during my 1976 stay at the National Defense College, New Delhi, the endless discussions among Air Commodores and Brigadiers and even among the army's various arms i.e. armored, artillery and infantry corps of their importance in war, with an infantry officer claiming that finally it is ground troops who hold the ground.

It is clear that Rumsfeld has been permanently damaged even if he survives calls for his resignation. Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, said ,``Any time a war goes wrong on a defense secretary's watch, not only does history judge them poorly but their ability to get anything done is gravely damaged.''

The effort to save Rumsfeld's credibility may be too late, said Lawrence J. Korb, a defense official in the Reagan administration, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington. ``He's already been weakened by the failures in Iraq,'' said Korb, `He can't possibly make a controversial decision'' without risking an uproar. He demanded and won from Bush the authority to run the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraqi society with 150,000 troops, and failed.

 Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia said Bush might be the real target of Rumsfeld's critics. ``A lot of this focus on an individual is a way of, maybe, criticizing the president,'' Allen told.

Any time a war goes wrong on a defense secretary's watch, not only does history judge them poorly but their ability to get anything done is gravely damaged.
Loren Thompson,
an analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia

"We cannot escape history," said Abraham Lincoln.

 "History? We don't know. We'll all be dead," George Bush remarked in 2003.

But quite clearly, USA is not fighting a cold war era conflict with USSR. This war is being fought in Iraq and is not a deterrent exercise in Mutual Assured Destruction. The transformation away from men on the ground to high-tech investment only enriches the military-industry complex .And to defend against whom .Unless it is for premeditated attacks against all including even Russians and the Chinese as some leaks suggest .

It would appear that the 2003 war was planned on the basis of the experience of the 1991 war, which required freeing Kuwait from Iraqi occupation and destruction of its war machine .There was little ground warfare. The Iraqi troops were withdrawing from Kuwait and put up little resistance .Tens of thousands were killed by 'target shooting ' US helicopter pilots when retreating .The 2003 plans did not take into account the fact that Iraqis would fight ferociously occupation of their country even Shiias at some stage now , as they did during the British occupation in 1920s .

Naturally, 2003 has not turned out to be a computer generated war of 1991 as transmitted by US TV channels to the US public. This is now real guerilla warfare of attrition for Iraqi independence from occupying foreign troops. To imagine that a larger force would have defeated the Iraqi nationalism and will to live free, as none of the generals imply .is but a folly. It would take a longer and bloodier war of independence as in Algeria against the French, in which nearly one million Algerians out of 11 million perished.

Leadership Qualities

Too many it came as a surprise, when King Hussein of Jordan on his death bed , replaced his intellectual brother Crown Prince Hassan , by his own son, now King Abdullah II ,to succeed him. King Hussein, one of the wisest and 'real rulers' of his time, combined the roles of a modern-day president, hands on commander-in-chief and the wise head of his tribe. He had undergone a crash course at the British Military academy at Sandhurst, when suddenly called to the throne when 17 years old. Military training and other qualities enabled him to survive and deepen the foundations of the artificially created Hashemite Kingdom in the sands of Arabia .  

A ruler in the region must understand threat perceptions and overall military strategy to survive and to protect his people.   To this end, he gave Prince Abdullah a military command that spent long time with the troops.  An additional factor weighing with King Hussein's decision was that , King Abdullah's mother was British and Crown Prince Hamzah 's mother an American .The West might view more favorably the half British King on throne with half American heir apparent. Whether King Abdullah and his kingdom would survive if the turmoil unleashed by the US misadventure in Iraq spreads in the region is another matter. To begin with, hitherto fiercely loyal Cherkesh have been the Palace guards from the very inception of the Kingdom!