Posted on 09/25/2006 5:33:32 AM PDT by TexKat
WASHINGTON - Retired military officers on Monday are expected to bluntly accuse Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.
"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.
A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, is expected to assess Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ...."
"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," said his testimony prepared for the hearing, to be held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections in which the war is a central issue.
The conflict, now in its fourth year, has claimed the lives of more than 2,600 American troops and cost more than $300 billion.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., the committee chairman, told reporters last week that he hoped the hearing would shed light on the planning and conduct of the war. He said majority Republicans had failed to conduct hearings on the issue, adding, "if they won't ... we will."
Since he spoke, a government-produced National Intelligence Estimate became public that concluded the war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Several members of the Senate Democratic leadership were expected to participate in the hearing. Dorgan said Republican lawmakers had been invited.
Even before the session convened, Republicans counter-attacked.
"Today's stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack," Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., said in a statement. He called Rumsfeld an "excellent secretary of defense."
It is unusual for retired military officers to criticize the Pentagon while military operations are under way, particularly at a public event likely to draw widespread media attention.
But Batiste, Eaton and retired Col. Paul X. Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq, and Batiste also was senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Batiste, who commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, also blamed Congress for failing to ask "the tough questions."
He said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.
Batiste said if full consideration had been given to the requirements for war, it's likely the U.S. would have kept its focus on Afghanistan, "not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents."
Hammes said in his prepared remarks that not providing the best equipment was a "serious moral failure on the part of our leadership."
The United States "did not ask our soldiers to invade France in 1944 with the same armor they trained on in 1941. Why are we asking our soldiers and Marines to use the same armor we found was insufficient in 2003," he asked.
Hammes was responsible for establishing bases for the Iraqi armed forces. He served in Iraq in 2004 and is now Marine Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University.
Eaton was responsible for training the Iraqi military and later for rebuilding the Iraqi police force.
He said planning for the postwar period was "amateurish at best, incompetent a better descriptor."
Public opinion polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq, but division about how quickly to withdraw U.S. troops. Democrats hope to tap into the anger in November, without being damaged by Republican charges they favor a policy of "cut and run."
By coincidence, the hearing came a day after public disclosure of the National Intelligence Estimate. The report was completed in April and represented a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, according to an intelligence official.
I hope they lose their retirement benefits.
Time to try and create news to deflect from Clintoon's meltdown on Fox...
Aw jeez, not this **** again. LOL
Retired officers to criticize Rumsfeld ping!
Not this sh*t again. Every couple of months, the MSM trumpets these same old tired idiots.
Keep it up, you lousy Democrats, so EVERY American sees that you are not ready for leading during Wartime!!!
It also used to be unusual for former Presidents to badmouth sitting Presidents.
It also used to be unusual for servicemen to falsely accuse their fellow US servicemen of committing atrocities.
It also used to be unusual for American citizens to blame their own government for atrocities committed against Americans by foreign entities.
It also used to be unusual for American citizens abroad to badmouth their own country.
It also used to be unusual for American journalists to commit treason in time of war.
But times are changing, and many people who used to have dignity, class and self-respect are now starf*cking dirt merchants.
Did the Democrats take back the Senate when I wasn't looking. Dorgan should be the ranking minority member if anything.
Retired, has-been, geezers criticize Rumsfeld. So how much does the DNC pay them?
We must preserve Rumsfeld's image ahead of the truth, right?
They tried to fight this war on the cheap and it will cost more to fix it than if they'd done it right the first time.
The first Battle of Fallujah (April '04) was a political neccesity and not out of military need, and ended up making us look weaker than when we started. But after the Blackwater guys were slaughtered, the administration felt the need to 'do something'.
And it didn't work out so well.
How much is this costing taxpayers and how much time are these senators taking away from current business they should be taking care of?
I was not addressing the rightness or wrongness of their position, but addressing their speaking out against the administration of the United States.
I understand that they may have some post-retirement responsibility not to do that.
If I'm corrected, let it at least be on the topic to which I am referring.
:)
It use to be a rare event for ex-Presidents to criticize current Presidents, but Clinton and Carter threw that out the window. Democrats are sinking the discourse in the country to the lowest levels ever seen before.
We don't care what these perfumed princes, who have been bribed, coerced, pressured etc. into performing on cue right before the election, have to say.
We're just glad they're retired.
The average American knows we are in mortal danger from islamo terrorists and we sure aren't hearing any better ideas from the "loyal" (snicker) opposition let alone ever seeing any competence from them as far as protecting us.
On the contrary, all we see are leaks designed to destroy the Bush admin that gee, just coincidentally destroy his ability to protect us.
I don't get this one. The Army went with the equipment it had been issued. Did they all go with the same thing? Of course not...the US kept a variety of different divisions with different types of equipment in each of them. Armor battalions are different than light infantry are different than airborne infantry than artillery, and so on.
If their testimony is accurate then I see no problems with them absolutely slamming and damning the administration if warranted.
You wouldn't expect them to stay silent and hide the truth if they were under h. clinton, would you?
Were the Jersey Girls busy?
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