TIME: Behind Rumsfeld's Fall: The Perils of Hubris

[DeepModem Mom]

Behind Rumsfeld's Fall: The Perils of Hubris
Analysis: The Defense Secretary was saved by the 9/11 attacks, but fell short in his effort to remake the military and overreached in Iraq
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 08, 2006

....(Donald Rumsfeld) quickly stumbled in his stubborn effort to remake the Pentagon. He, and the Bush administration, failed to make the tough choices necessary to build a 21st century fighting force. Instead, they stuffed billions of dollars into 20th century weapons system that sprang from the drawing board when Russia was still the Soviet Union. As F-22 attack planes and Virginia-class submarines consumed the Pentagon's purse, there weren't enough soldiers to prevail in Iraq — and those dispatched lacked the necessary armor to do their jobs.

It's hard to recall it now, but Rumsfeld was on the ropes before the 9/11 attacks. His roughshod treatment of many in the military — fairly or unfairly — had many officers, especially in the Army, setting their bayonets into place by the middle of 2001. It was only the al-Qaeda attacks that saved Rumsfeld's job later that year, many Pentagon insiders believe. Overnight, he achieved pop-culture status, his stern countenance and parrying of press questions bringing him a peculiar kind of Washington fame in those scary weeks following 9/11. Yet it was the pair of wars launched in the wake of those terror strikes that, over time, highlighted on a far bigger stage his short-sighted and subordinate-ruffling demeanor. The cracks in his management acumen began showing as the insurgency surged in Iraq in late 2003, and widened when the heinous photographs of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exploded in the spring of 2004.

Rumsfeld and the generals around him puffed with pride when their fairly audacious war plan for Afghanistan succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power before the end of 2001. If anything, that increased the hubris that came to doom the U.S. mission in Iraq. It was that same sense of imperiousness, more than anything else, that toppled GOP control of Congress on Tuesday. On Wednesday, almost as an afterthought, it also brought to an inglorious end to Rumsfeld's Pentagon tenure.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1556617,00.html?cnn=yes

[mediaman007]

1. Amen! There is nothing so tragic as someone who fails to understand

the time and place. Rumsfeld fought the cold war, and forgot it ended 15 years ago. History will not be kind to him.

[Warpy]

2. Worse, he thought the lesson of Vietnam

was how to redesign a military to win it, missing the real lesson: avoid getting into wars of occupation in the first place.

He really thought he had redesigned the military to the point that they would roll over Iraq (which they did) and pacify the country within a few weeks, and we know how that is turning out.

Iraq was the laboratory to test the Rumsfeld doctrine. Now his name will forever be associated with blindness, ignorance, arrogance, and total failure.

[mediaman007]

3. Colin Powell must be sippin' some wine...

sweet karma for Colin!

[PsN2Wind]

4. Except Powell was another pitchman for the war

He might have done it different, he might not have wanted it to happen, but he went before the world and knowingly told lies that helped the neo-cons including Rumsfeld to promote it. Screw Powell, I hope his wine turns to vinegar.

[mediaman007]

5. I'm not a Powell fan, but I'm just sayin' that Powell is seeing

some sort of retribution here. Powell was in a tough position, trying to counter both Cheney and Rumsfeld. (I do agree that he copped out in his talk to the United Nations.)