Rumsfeld Faces Iraq, Other Tasks at Busy Pentagon

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Rumsfeld, if he stays as Pentagon chief, faces challenges not only in taming Iraq's insurgency but in modernizing the U.S. military and fielding a viable missile defense system, officials and analysts say.
........
"Rumsfeld doesn't want to walk out when the job is only half done. And he also doesn't want to walk away at a time when people are questioning whether he's done a good job so far. He wants to prove he was right," said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute.
..........
He has championed the quest to reshape the military from its ponderous Cold War past into a 21st-century force nimble enough to speed to global hot spots, but Pentagon officials say the effort, resisted by some in uniform, has a long way to go.

Rumsfeld is in the middle of a dramatic realignment of U.S. forces overseas, with numerous big decisions pending.

The Pentagon is slated by the end of 2004 to activate a multibillion-dollar system to defend America from attack by ballistic missiles, but critics say it has been insufficiently tested and doubt it will work.

The Pentagon has also dabbled with the idea of smaller nuclear bombs designed to destroy deeply buried underground bunkers that may harbor enemy weapons of mass destruction. A decision remains to be made on whether to make them.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6735995&src=rss/ElectionCoverage§ion=news

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Like the ultimate success of our military rests on some more of the

bonehead decisions this one single human being has made. What a friggin egotrip.... honest to God. The madness astounds me... it truly does. This man, responsible for the torture of innocent Iraqis which subsequently has led to an insurgency that would rather die than see us on their property... WFT is wrong with the people in the upper levels of this government that they cannot, will not see things for what they really and truly are.... pass me the kool aid...

[bobthedrummer]

2. drip, drip, drip

:grr:

[acmavm]

3. The Rumsfeld Factor was totally ignored during this election. This is the

man who said that we could fight this war on the cheap and with fewer troops than the Pentagon experts told him it would take.

So now, the guy who didn't get one damn thing right is on the road to putting into action is screwed up unrealistic agenda.

Again, another example of the Bizarro Factor.

[Monte Carlo]

4. Yes, good luck polishing those turds for the next 4 years.

Rumsfeld, you silly little man. How goes the war in Iraq?