Ah, c'mon. Just because his computer program hasn't gone past Windows 98 doesn't make him a moron. Or does it? :D

If our national security is based on a Windoze-based platform, we might as well just hang it up and start praying to the east five times a day now.

When you say Rumsfeld threw it out are you saying that Rumsfeld (and his Generals) threw it out? I have heard Rumsfeld and Bush say repeatedly that the Generals are getting the troop levels they want, are they lying, will we find out when these generals retire that they wanted more? Or are the Generals part of Rumsfelds league of morons?

Did U just figure this out?

Lenny the Generals knew that even if they asked for more troops they wouldn't get anymore, because there were no more to be had...so they didn't ask...they acted under the assumption of why cause themselves anymore grief..

And a bully...good f'n ridance. The two times I briefed him were as bizarre as bizarre gets. This is a man to whom logic and common sense are viewed as impediments.

The two friends of mine who served on his staff should have gotten combat pay.

I see you had to the same political science course as Dubya. Naw, there's not real good reason for Dubya to be interested in working with Pelosi. Unless of course......

HE WANTS TO GET SOMETHING THROUGH CONGRESS!!!!!!!!!

This is fascinating. Some folks whose remarks through Monday were 100% supportive........are now saying the Iraq matter is a mess. I guess it was going well until yesterday.

This is extremely funny. That's like being famous for bipartisan politics in Massachusets.

I have absolutely no confidence that Dubya is going to be anything other than arrogant. He's a one trick pony. Scare everyone and talk like a brave hero.

Have you ever tried to put together an invasion of 385,000 men composed of thousands of disparate units and composed of tens of thousands of combat vehicles requiring thousands of transport sorties?

I havn't either, but i hear it's compi-cated. ;)

TPFDL is one of the greatest military inventions of the post cold war era.

If you'd actually paid attention to what the people on the right were saying for oh- the last year or so, they were also EXTREMELY unhappy with the repubs.

But paying attention does not really seem to be your strong suit, oh great man of steel. ;)

His daddy was the hero(and he really was), Jr is just a clueless heir...

I call him Rumnamara.

I bet you can certainly understand why.

The similarities are as amazing as they are horrifying.

"We don't deal with reality, we make reality". I don't think Rumsfeld said that, but he believed and lived by it.

I have my right arm held up high. I fugure that adfter reading this thread we are buried deep in BS so I might as well save my watch.

For the record, that so and so pelosi publically stated that Bush is incompetent and should not be president.
He has already called her and offered congratulations and has extended an invitation to her to have lunch at the white house and discuss the future. He has demonstrated more class and professionalism than she has.
If they have trouble working together it will be her shoulders, not his.

Rumsfeld pressured General Tommy Franks into throwing it out. Everyone else in the chain of command below franks just held their breath and griped among themselves.(except for Shinseki, who was above Franks, and who testified before Congress that the invasion force was too small, and the on-scene commander William Wallace, who likewise stated that the force was too small, and of course ret. Generals Barry McCaffrey(my former CO) and Wesley Clark)

Rumsfeld also sent his own planning staff to 'spy' on CENTCOM's planning staff during the phase where the warplans were being drawn up. Anytime his 'spies' reported to him something he didn't like, he was on the phone(or sent one of his infamous "Snowflake" memos) chirping in Tommy Franks ear to get his way. In the end, CENTCOM ended up giving them their own trailer on a queit corner of McDill AFB, and cut them out of the loop entirely.

The generals have consistently asked for more, and oft-times been turned down by Rumnamara.

One specific example involves the 82nd Abn, and a request in 2004 for four prototype light tanks to be sent to Iraq to help bolster the 82nd's combat power.

Rumsfeld turned them down flat.

The vehicles in question(and some background):
http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/quarters/2116/lighttanks.htm

Another good example is the thousands of M-113A3 armored personnel carriers we had in storage in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait the Rumsfeld refused to release to our forces when the insurgency was first gaining momentum and we got caught with a severe shortage of M1114s(up-armored HUMVEEs) in theater.
There are several theories as to why Rummy denied them, the most likely being that it 'threatened' the brand new Stryker combat vehicle, the most heinous being that releasing older 'dinosaur legacy' armored vehicles undermined his vision for the future of ground combat(something that, btw, he has ZERO experience with)

Rumsfeld has it set in his head that we should be doing X, even though the rest of the Army does not see it the same way. the bottom line is that Rummy was a micro-managing control-freak of the first order.

Thank god he's gone, that's all i can say.

Cobra II(looks at Rummys role) and Fiasco(takes a critical look at senior US Military leadership) have all of this and much, much more in much, much greater detail. Both are must reads.

Both came highly reccomended to me by a US Army Major who is also a West Point professor, and one of the smartest soldiers i know.

I command thee to take me to 2008.
http://images16.fotki.com/v300/photo...umbnail-vi.jpg

I'm seeing a lot of piling-on and me-too here. Rumsfield had defenders on this board up to not so long ago. Suddenly he has none. Defeat is truly an orphan.

People are allowed to be wrong, but for my part, i was squaking my asss off as soon as it became apparent that Shinseki and Wallace were right, and we'd gone in with an indadequate force....like i guess 3 or 4 days into the war, and i was none too pleased with the lead up either.

But a lot of people gave faith in Rummy and the Gov't that they'd learned from Vietnam and ODS, except, this bunch hadn't.

And um, i seem to also recall a lot of dems voting for the war(in polls and on capital hill), so a lot on the left were wrong too.

Thems the breaks.

Buh Bye!