- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions
between the civilian leaders of the Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, and the U.S. military's top brass have deepened amid the
deteriorating situation in Iraq.
-
- Even before the Iraq war some senior officers chafed
under the guidance of Rumsfeld and his team, including Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.
-
- Retired officers and defense analysts said the problems
have worsened during a war in which critics accuse Rumsfeld's team of neglecting
to provide enough troops to stabilize Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein,
botching the planning for the postwar period, and failing to anticipate
and later comprehend an insurgency that threatens the mission with failure.
-
- "The war itself has led to, rightly or wrongly,
the feeling among many in the military that they're not receiving competent
direction, that it is too ideological, and that a lot of their military
efforts have been wasted by what they regard as poor, inept planning for
the stability phase," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official
now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
-
- The military, particularly the Army, has been strained
mightily in maintaining troop levels in Iraq far higher than the Pentagon
had forecast. Faced with a relentless insurgency, the Pentagon ordered
20,000 troops to remain three months longer than promised, and scrambled
to find ways to maintain the current count of 138,000 troops there through
the end of 2005.
-
- Meanwhile, the military has been stained by a scandal
in which soldiers physically and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners.
-
- "It's obvious there has been damage to the U.S.
military as an institution because it is over-strained and it is over-deployed.
And it is beginning to see its morale erode because it is losing confidence
in the direction of the war," Cordesman said.
-
- Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former top U.S.
commander in the Middle East, criticized Rumsfeld's team in "Battle
Ready," a book written with author Tom Clancy.
-
- "In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct,
I saw at a minimum true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at
worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," Zinni wrote.
-
- 'WAITING HIM OUT'
-
- University of North Carolina military historian Richard
Kohn said a natural tension has existed between political appointees named
by any president to head the Defense Department and the professional military
officers who must follow their lead. Kohn said Rumsfeld's relationship
with the military brass has been as tense as any defense secretary except
Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War era Pentagon chief.
-
- "He has alienated the military," Kohn said.
"Many of them are waiting him out, or avoiding bringing problems to
him, or trying to avoid dealing with him. And he knows that. And he avoids
them quite frequently, and circumvents them, and tries to get around the
bureaucracy."
-
- "He's blunt. He's direct. He can be abusive. He
can be difficult. And he's often indecisive. He keeps questioning and questioning,
and he doesn't provide these people with answers. And they're not sure
what his position is. They're not sure what he wants," Kohn said.
-
- Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, who commanded an
armored brigade in the 1991 Gulf War and led troops into Bosnia, said some
grumbling by senior officers is customary.
-
- "But this time around, it seems that there are some
very serious concerns, primarily oriented on the issue of what this escapade
(Iraq) has done to the military, primarily the Army," added Nash,
now with the Council on Foreign Relations.
-
- Rumsfeld, who also served as defense secretary from 1975
to 1977, began his second stint in 2001 determined to reassert civilian
control over the generals and admirals, who he felt were ceded too much
sway in the Clinton administration.
-
- "The Constitution calls for civilian control of
this department, and I'm a civilian," Rumsfeld once told reporters.
-
- Rumsfeld's first skirmishes stemmed from his quest to
"transform" the military from a plodding, Cold War-era relic
into an agile force designed to confront 21st century threats.
-
- Rumsfeld was seen as particularly hard on the Army, undercutting
its former top officer, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz dismissed
Shinseki's assertion a month before the war that several hundred thousand
U.S. troops might be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq.
-
- "The Shinseki thing is really ironic because not
only was he badly treated, he was right," Nash said.
|
