PT in the Real Navy by real Sailors

A little preview of the next "Fullbore Friday." PT in dress whites for the enlisted and Chokers for the officers. Next time someone complains at the PRT that "my feet hurt" or "my pants were rubbing my legs wrong..", show them this picture. High res here.

Back in Iraq

Michael Fumento is back in Iraq. Forget the spin, go for the primary source. Good diverse writing.

I should have explained earlier that I was embedded with three units in First Division, Fourth Brigade. It's commanded by an Iraqi and comprises mostly Iraqis with American MITT advisors. That stands for Military Transition Teams. Their purpose is to transition the Iraqis into an independent fighting force. It's actually an Army Special Forces job, but the Green Berets are essentially being used in what's supposed to be their secondary job as commandoes.

So MITTs are pulled together from conventional units. In this case, most were from an Army Reserve unit based in Richmond, Virginia. That was actually rather nice for me because it meant a lot of these guys were essentially neighbors of mine. One lived one city over in Alexandria, a couple lived in nearby Fairfax where my German classes are, and one had a condo in my own town of Arlington. One of the Fairfax guys knew about a bar called "Dr. Dreamo's" that's about a block from my townhouse, so he knew exactly where I lived. But we also had Marines mixed in, so your typical patrol would be about half Iraqi, one-fourth Army, and one-fourth Marine.

Yes, the Army guys badmouthed the Marine Corp sometimes. The usual complaint is that the USMC is too big on brawn, to little on brains and finesse. In this case, there was some definite bad blood. Marines were given orders to come through the area and shoot stray dogs and ended up plugging the cute little camp mascot. The soldiers said they knew it was a pet but killed it out of spite. I don't know. But certainly the soldiers completely respected and got along with the Marines who served alongside them.

Hat tip The Corner.

7 days in April?

Is there more bubbling out there WRT a "Generals War?" Is there something happening...or is this just a Election '06 "Perfect Storm" dream?

...in Sunday's Washington Post the very smart, very well-connected former Clinton Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke published an article entitled "Behind the Military Revolt." In this article he predicts that there will be increasing numbers of retired generals speaking out against Sec. Rumsfeld. Then, shockingly, he writes the following words: "If more angry generals emerge -- and they will -- if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable . . . then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld."

Mr. Holbrooke is at the least very well-informed -- if he is not himself part of this military cabal intended to "consume ... Donald Rumsfeld." Mr. Holbrooke sets the historic tone of his article in his first sentence when he says this event is "the most serious public confrontation between the military and administration since . . . Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur."

He goes into the legal side of the house of this as well; I'm not qualified to speak to that - but I think he is wrong.

Hey, I spend most of my time on the Navy side of the house. If there is an Active Duty group of SIGNIFICANT Flag Officers who are looking at doing this at this stage of the game; they should standby. They are out of step with the Flags that ignore me in the back of the room as they talk: things will get bloody. Look how history treats MacArthur vs McClellen. This is an election year. Close to the election. I don't care if they have the best of intentions - it is going to be looked at as domestic politics - because that is what it is. If such a thing exists outside Holbrooke's nogg'n, and Holbrooke knows about it, I know it is nothing but election year politics.

Bring it on, sirs (if you are out there....). Bring it on. If in the likely event this doesn't happen, it just adds more proof that Holbrooke is a putz. If it does happen, he is conspiring with Flag Officers on Active Duty to impact and election. He is still a putz....or worse. Yea, I called him that. I have my reasons. Nuff said.

Giving “The Pensioners” wedgies

Thomas Lipscomb knocks it out of the park in the Philadelphia Inquirer with, “Who is Taking Responsibility?”

But now that a galaxy of flag officers' stars are raining down on Rumsfeld demanding his resignation, no one seems to have bothered to ask which, if any, of these generals had ever submitted his own resignation in protest against the conduct of the Iraqi war, or the bumpy transition we are locked in now.

Ahhhh yes General, heal thyself.

After listening to subtle and not-so-subtle digs at national defense policy by the guests of honor and appreciative sniggers from the audience, I jotted a question down on the back of a card and passed it to former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who was at my table.

"If you have so many significant disagreements with national defense policy, what have you done about it?"

Lehman wrote back that if I asked that question, he'd buy me lunch, and passed it to me with a smile. So I asked it.

"What do you expect us to do?" a senior Marine general replied.

"Resign," I said. "Cyrus Vance did. And he was Carter's secretary of state."

"You are questioning my cojones, and I am a Marine!" the general shot back as the millionaire fan club gasped at my disrespect.
He was right. I was. I still am, his and any general officers' who apparently decided discretion was the better part of a nice retirement parade with a medal or two and a couple of offers of board positions.

Being a Flag Officer, or combat veteran does not make it immune. Also, after awhile, Flag Officers really don’t know how to react to a direct question.

Gens. Gregory Newbold, John Batiste, Paul D. Eaton, Charles H. Swannack, and others apparently have believed Rumsfeld's policies so dire that they are calling for his resignation. Yet their opinions would have carried far more weight if they had been stated at some personal cost, if the generals had resigned in protest while on active duty.
That action might have also carried some evidence of the moral as well as physical courage Americans expect of the highest-ranking officers of their uniformed services.

Lead, follow, or fade away. Right now, many of you are engaging in little more than book flogging, Bitter-boy recriminations, or self-fluffery.

As a book-publishing executive for many years, I have always welcomed the opportunity to make a buck by publishing "now it can be told revelations" from those formerly in power. And timing those "revelations" to promote a forthcoming book is one of the oldest tricks in the trade.
…
As the author of a "forthcoming book," Zinni will have the additional burden of having to explain how we are expected to tell whether he is more committed to the best interests of the American people or his own pocketbook.

Ahem. Always follow the money. Ahem. Oh, when is General Zinni going to write his self-criticism about his wonderful success as Middle East envoy?

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Hey, I guess it isn't just me and a few loonies. Not a Bush flacking organization, the BBC has a few things to say as well - I think it smells something...

Shifting blame?

Some former officers go even further, attacking the generals who are calling for Mr Rumsfeld to go.

Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel who now works as a military analyst, says the critics are trying to pin blame on the defence secretary for their own errors of planning and execution.

"The generals see it as everyone else's fault other than theirs," he says.

He says Mr Rumsfeld set goals for the military to accomplish and left the generals to make the battle plans - as he should have done.

Their failures, not the defence secretary's, have got the US bogged down in Iraq, he argues.

He dismisses the oft-heard judgement that the Americans have too few troops on the ground.

"One would expect a more enlightened view from those who were in Vietnam, since we poured hundreds of thousands of troops into Vietnam and we lost.

"The bottom line is that many of these general officers are being both dishonest and hypocritical. Removing Rumsfeld isn't going to change anything."

Election calculation

But not all the generals calling for Mr Rumsfeld to go were serving during the invasion of Iraq, experts point out. At least two retired the year before it and presumably do not see their personal reputations as being on the line.

And sources say as many as two dozen other retired top-ranking officers may be on the verge of coming forward to join the public critics - some of whom have been retired for 15 years.

Mr Disch of the Center for Media and Security lists many possible reasons the Rumsfeld critics have come forward at this point, ranging from true belief in what they are saying to fears that the US military will be caught in a civil war in Iraq.

Ultimately, however, he says the reason - or reasons - for their actions may be irrelevant.

"By weighing in, regardless of their intention, it will help to shape opinions, particularly to those who are still sitting on the fence."

And - as he points out - this is an election year.

Whether George W Bush's Republican party retains control of Congress will have much to do with American opinion about the war in Iraq - a factor he will have to take into account as he considers Mr Rumsfeld's future.

Oh, the other loonies? Great commentary over at Chester's, CounterColumn, and RofaSIX.

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CINC has something for you

Oh the polls. Yea, kind of tough.

Oh, one more thing. Best military quote of the week, by retired CJCS General Myers. You have to read the whole thing for context, but here it is:

"If we don't do that, we should be shot."

Now that's OLD SCHOOL.

Hungry?

Ready for a snack? Want to know what those yummies are? Of course you do.

Rummy vs. The Pensioners

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UPDATE and BUMP:See bottom for update

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One of the best responses to the Battle of the Bitter-boys (I just use that because it makes some people so angry - just kidding Shipmate) is out there on the streets; an Editorial at National Review Online, “The Army’s Revenge.”

As a political matter, Rumsfeld’s leaving at this moment, under this kind of fire, would play as an admission that the critics who say the Iraq war was fundamentally botched have been right all along. The White House realizes this, which is one reason President Bush made such a strong statement in support of Rumsfeld on Friday. That retired generals are criticizing a Defense secretary is not, per se, the threat to civil-military relations that some of Rumsfeld’s defenders seem to think. Retired flag officers are citizens after all, and they’re free to say whatever they want. But there is something unseemly about it, especially considering that most of them apparently kept conveniently quiet about their misgivings while in uniform.

More important, the criticisms of Rumsfeld don’t have much force. Some say he is too imperious. This charge isn’t hard to believe of the strong-willed Rumsfeld, but it is disappointing that generals are apparently so easily cowed that their only recourse when dealing with a muscular Defense secretary is to whine about it after the fact. Others complain about his “micro-management” of the war. It is true that Rumsfeld has exercised a remarkably strong hand in dealing with the military. In planning for the initial Iraq invasion in particular, he was relentless in challenging the work of CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, driving him to come up with a plan that wasn’t just an unimaginative repeat of Desert Storm. The plan didn’t suffer from Rumsfeld’s intense attention; in fact, the opposite was the case. Even such Rumsfeld critics as Cobra II authors Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor credit the innovation and effectiveness of the invasion.

As a matter of principle, micromanagement from a Defense secretary is not a bad thing, even if Robert McNamara gave it a bad name during the Vietnam War. Our system is based on the U.S. military’s taking direction from civilian leadership. There is no reason to think that the assumption behind the micromanagement criticism of Rumsfeld — that if only the generals had been left to their own devices, things would have turned out fine — is true. Rumsfeld should actually be faulted for not micromanaging Tommy Franks enough when it came to planning for postwar operations, in which the general had little or no interest.

It would have been better if they had been like General Shinseki, though I didn’t agree with him, he did it the right way if he had a different idea. Anyway, read the whole thing, but I like the editorial because it points out a few glass houses that need review.

Retired Army Major General John Batiste has faulted Rumsfeld for insufficient postwar planning. Given that almost all of the administration’s major postwar assumptions proved to be wrong — especially about the continued existence of an effective Iraqi army and police force to provide security — that is a fair criticism. But Batiste was at one point the top military aide to then deputy secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. He seemed to share the vision of the Pentagon’s civilian team, and so was awarded a second star and, ultimately, command of a division in Iraq. Once there, he gave every appearance of supporting the strategy and talked of the progress we were making. It’s his prerogative to change his mind, but doing so should involve some humility and the admission that he too was wrong about postwar Iraq. Instead, he suggests every mistake was Rumsfeld’s alone.

There is, finally, a root-and-branch criticism that some of the retired generals make, especially Gens. Zinni and Newbold. They say the Iraq war was a foolish endeavor to begin with, and, in a mind-numbing recitation of all the conventional Arabist beliefs, insist that there is nothing wrong with the Middle East that can’t be fixed by cracking down on Israel. This isn’t a criticism of Rumsfeld, but of President Bush and his entire foreign policy. They surely would be no happier with any replacement Defense secretary who is equally committed to implementing Bush’s vision.

They also say, very well, what I have been trying to say (not very well) about the dump Rumsfeld movement.

The debate over Rumsfeld is disappointing in its simplistic assumption that the long, hard slog in Iraq is the doing of one man. There were plenty of mistakes made in Iraq, and there is blame enough to go around. The important questions now have to do with how to prevail in the current conditions in Iraq, and on this the retired generals have little to say, exposing their own lack of seriousness.

Yep, about right.

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UPDATE: I think even Skippy will say the last bit on this from OpinionJournal.com is "fair and balanced," though he may not like the tone.

...The anti-Rumsfeld generals have a right to their opinion. But there's a reason the Founders provided for civilian control of the military, and a danger in military men using their presumed authority to push elected Administrations around. As for Democrats and their media allies, we can only admire their sudden new deference to the senior U.S. officer corps, which follows their strange new respect for the "intelligence community" they also once despised. U.S. military recruiters might not be welcome on Ivy League campuses, but they're heroes when they trash the Bush Administration.

Mr. Rumsfeld's departure has been loudly demanded in various quarters for a couple of years now, without much success, and on Friday Mr. Bush said he still has his every confidence. We suspect the President understands that most of those calling for Mr. Rumsfeld's head are really longing for his.

You may also want to read my post from Saturday, that has fallen into archive.

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