General joins attack on Rumsfeld over Iraq war
One has to wonder how long - even someone as pledged to loyalty as President Bush - can continue to hold on to a Defence Sectretary under such continuous attack?
It would appear that the patience of the US military has finally snapped with the leadership of Rumsfeld and now serious breaches are appearing in the dyke wall.
As I reported here, the calls for Rumsfeld to step down have reached fever pitch in the past few months; and now a fourth retired General has joined the chorus of resignation demands and gone public with a call that Rumsfeld should quit.
Major General John Batiste, who led a division in Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld's authoritarian leadership style had made it more difficult for professional soldiers. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork," he told CNN on Wednesday.
Gen Batiste's comments were especially startling because he is so closely associated with the civilian leadership, having served as an aide to one of the architects of the war, the former deputy Pentagon chief Paul Wolfowitz.
Earlier this week Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, the former director of operations for the joint chiefs of staff, published a scathing critique of the planning for the war in an essay for Time magazine. Gen Newbold said he regretted not objecting more forcefully to the invasion of Iraq while he was still in uniform.
He went on to call on those still in service to speak up. "I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't -or don't have the opportunity to - speak."
As I have previously argued regarding President Bush, loyalty is a fine quality, but so is leadership. The two are not automatically synonymous.
It's time for Bush to prove whether he possesses the latter. Fire Rumsfeld.Tags:
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