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BAGHDAD — Combined operations by Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to target al-Qaida terrorists at the same time as reconstruction projects continue throughout Iraq, Coalition officials told reporters on Thursday. In a joint press conference, Multi-National Force – Iraq spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, IV, and Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division, discussed progress being made on both the operational and reconstructions fronts. Since August 30th, over 150 focused operations have been conducted in Iraq, Caldwell said. The operations resulted in 66 terrorists killed and over 830 suspected...

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY The president's news conference this week was as close to a declaration of policy bankruptcy as anything seen so far in his stewardship of the 3 1/2-year war in Iraq. With his poll numbers still down around his ankles and even some key Republicans questioning the wisdom of staying the course in Iraq, President Bush flatly declared there will be no withdrawal of American troops before noon Jan. 20, 2009. I believe it was Will Rogers who said when you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is quit digging. The president knows...

Senior Israel Defense Forces officers expressed dissatisfaction yesterday with the announcement by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz that he had recently instructed the Field Security Directorate at the General Staff to keep track of their telephone conversations. According to a report in Haaretz yesterday, Halutz instructed the Field Security Directorate to provide him with the telephone logs of the generals, their department heads and their secretaries, in order to crosscheck whether they have had contacts with journalists. [ . . . ] According to the disgruntled officers , the chief of staff's action "stinks of McCarthyism" . . .

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- As the leadership of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force changed hands, the departing and incoming commanders said they believe an investigation into accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will ultimately strengthen the corps. Lt. Gen. Keith Stalder took command of the Camp Lejeune-based group on Wednesday from Lt. Gen. James Amos, who is headed to the Pentagon to become deputy commandant in charge of combat development. "We don't know the facts on Haditha, let alone what the facts mean at this point," said Stalder. "We do owe it to the American people...

<p>There is a direct link between the alleged atrocities in Haditha and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. His poor decisions and bad judgment in 2003 and 2004 are the root causes for the prolonged challenge we now face. Haditha is but a symptom of a much bigger problem.</p>

The World War II generation would have understood the revolt of the six generals right off. Coming through a five-year conflict that involved the whole of American society, that generation found military behavior, organization, and language second nature. "KP." "Double-time." Most important, terms like "battalion" and "regiment."

The matter of Rumsfeld v. the Generals bears close scrutiny. The controversy represents the worst breach in civil-military relations since Harry Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for his conduct and his criticism of the president during the Korean War. It has proven an unwelcome distraction for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs, and has added to the already considerable woes of President Bush in his role as a wartime commander-in-chief. Notably, the calls from a group of recently retired generals that Rumsfeld should resign has also thrust senior military leaders and, by proxy, the uniformed services...

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has taken a serious beating recently. His critics, including several retired Army and Marine Corps generals, have accused him, in essence, of being personally responsible for perceived failures in Iraq. His critics charge that he ignored military advice and insisted on a plan for Iraq that employed too small of a force, that he failed to adapt to new circumstances once things began to go wrong, that he failed to foresee the insurgency that now rages, and that he ignored the need to prepare for post-conflict stability operations. The first thing to realize is that...

First, if there is a rebellion of any active duty General, this writer has not heard about it, but if one believes the media, Generals are in full-scale revolt. As Colonel Sherman T. Potter of MASH fame said, “horse pucky.” Of course there are disagreements, and should be. On the other hand, if there was an actual rebellion, “Houston, we have a problem.” Second, disagreement is the fire that refines arguments and thinking. The decibel level may vary, but in the end, after the arguments have been heard, active duty Generals have a UCMJ and Constitutional obligation to “keep silent.”...

The press coverage of the recent censure of Donald Rumsfeld by six retired general officers has been bereft of one fact and that is that each of yapping officers is a product of the Clinton Pentagon and owes his stars to Democratic office-holder approval. Let's put to rest the first issue raised by these generals speaking out. They are retired from active duty and unless they signed an agreement to keep quiet about military secrets, they are free to state their views and should do so. On the other hand, they will have to defend those positions in the rough...

ARLINGTON, Va. — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker on Wednesday criticized retired generals who have come out against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other defense leaders, calling their comments “unfortunate” and “inappropriate.” “I was retired, and you didn’t see me doing it,” Schoomaker told reporters during a Washington press breakfast. “If I thought what these officers were saying was true, I would not be here.” Schoomaker suggested that if the generals were so unhappy with their civilian masters, they should have left their jobs in protest. “I think we have a responsibility, while we’re in uniform, if we...

SAN FRANCISCO--George P. Shultz was the secretary of state of the United States during the years that the Soviet Union was led, successively, by Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev. During those years, 1982 to 1989, the United States was led by Ronald Reagan. At the end of our interview, as he was showing me out of his apartment, Mr. Shultz invited me to stop in the dining room. "I want you to see something," he said. We walked over to a table. "Have a look at that. It arrived in the mail the other day." It...

Much thought and ink has been expended of late on the subject of retired military officers speaking their minds on political issues and criticizing the Secretary of Defense. As the debate raged on, this Sailor remained silent because we're only talking about a handful of the over 8,000 retired admirals and generals still on the payroll. Six of 8,000 does not exactly make for a serious mutiny, and that's something a good Chief Petty Officer should be able to put down. So, I let the shouting rage around me and pretended to ignore it, until that is, I really start...

Criticism of Donald Rumsfeld by the uniformed military is nothing new. As I noted a year ago, most of Rumsfeld's critics are uniformed officers unhappy with the changes he has wrought during his tenure as secretary of defense.But the rhetoric has notched up recently. Several retired generals have denounced Rumsfeld and called for his resignation over Iraq. Much of the language they have used is intemperate, and some is downright contemptuous. For instance, Marine general Anthony Zinni, Tommy Franks's predecessor as commander of Central Command — the organization responsible for implementing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — has described...

A critical element of the “General’s Revolt” that has not received enough attention is the involvement of the Center for Defense Information (CDI). The CDI is a Washington-based advocacy group that, like the Institute of Policy Studies or the National Resources Defense Council, is usually described with a bland, harmless-sounding tagline that hides more than it reveals. The CDI claims to be an organization making available continuing, objective information and analyses of our national defense when in fact for the past three decades it has been the Left’s point organization for attacking military and defense policy. The CDI was founded...

WASHINGTON - Everyone is saying that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s days are numbered, thanks in part to increasing calls by some former generals for Rumsfeld’s resignation. But Rumsfeld was hired by George W. Bush to do precisely what he has done to the consternation of the generals who are now coming out to complain about him. When President Bush brought Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon, the president told him to shake up the Pentagon, to transform it from the Cold War structure and culture that it was stuck in to a new force with strategies that could respond to...

April 24, 2006 — The six retired generals who have called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation may soon get a chance to bring their complaints to Capitol Hill. In response to a request from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said he would ask his committee to vote on whether to hold a hearing with all six generals. The hearing would give critics of the embattled defense secretary a high-profile forum to air their grievances about his management of the Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, on Monday came under more fire after another retired general joined the growing list of retired brass gunning for his resignation. Retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, a three-star general who retired in 1997, told Fox News that Mr Rumsfeld was not capable of leading the Pentagon effort in Iraq. He is the eighth former general to call for Mr Rumsfeld to step down. "When I look at where we are in this war to date, and imagine where we could have been if the right number of troops had been put in at the...

The vitriol leveled against Clinton during his administration was tasteless, to be sure. But the attacks against Bush (a commander-in-chief in time of war) and his chief lieutenants, have not only soiled the grounds of common decency; they may well have crossed over from general dissent into the realm of sedition.

Clinton wants anti-Rumsfeld generals to testify WASHINGTON Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton says the generals who have been calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld should testify before the Senate. Clinton weighed in today on the growing effort to oust the Defense Secretary, but did not call for Rumsfeld's removal. She says it's more important to find out what did or did not go wrong in planning the war in Iraq. Some fellow Democrats have criticized Clinton for voting for the war and not doing more now to bring the troops home.