May God bless you Mr. Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld sent in the force we could sustain over the long haul.

That doesn't make any sense. Rumsfeld's plan - or rather lack of plan - was to go in and get out again quickly. There was no "long haul" in his plans for Iraq.

Mr. Austin, why make yourself look ignorant?

The Army had *foresight*, based on experience & professional caution. They warned Rumsfeld that a large force was needed to keep order. He didn't care. Rumsfeld is smart, masterful, and a fool.

Ask yourself one question: is it even remotely possible Iraq would be more stable today if the enemy knew we were united and weren't going to quit until they were defeated? Put down your baggage for just a minute and think about that. Is it possible?

I consider it a privilege to have served the last 3 years of my career under Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush, mainly because they made me feel clean again after 8 years of you-know-who. I've spoken with enough folks currently serving who feel the same way to know I'm not alone.

We are losing the war because we did go to war with the troop we had.

That is stupid. We should have waited until we could have built up the forces until we could put the 400,000 to 500,000 men in Iraq that we needed to provide security. In WW II we waited over two years until we could expand and train the army before we invaded North Africa. but this is the first war in US history that three years into the war the army is weaker then at the start of the war. This administration will not even allow the pentagon to budget the funds to replace the equipment being destroyed in Iraq..

But you guys had to go to war right now with the forces we had. So now we are losing the war because of that.

So why did you decide to go to war without giving the military the resources they needed to win?

In economics there is a concept called revealed preference. You want what you are willing to pay for. So don't claim you wanted to win the war because your revealed preference is that you wanted something else.

It s very simple, if you had given the military the resources they needed to win you would have had to give up your tax cut for the wealthy.

Remember, one of the first casualties of the war was Larry Linsey for trying to make an honest estimate of the cost of the war.

We are losing the war because the Republican revealed preference is that their tax cuts for the wealthy was more important then winning the war.

I challenge you to show me one fact that disproves this argument.

And now we have a President that rants and raves about the cost of losing the war. But it is his policies, and his policies alone, that are losing the war and he refuses to change them. PURE STUPIDITY AND YOU TRY TO BLAME LIBERALS FOR YOUR STUPIDITY.

Remember, you go to war with the generals you've got, not the ones you wish you had....

This that's a bizarre and recent myth. Hell, 99% of the 3-stars and 90% of the 4-stars would have GLADLY taken it had it been offered. You seriously think they went around offering it and getting NO's?

The reason Schoomaker was brought out of retirement was to get a guy not Army to the Service bureaucracy, not because nobody would take the job. He was not only a SOF lifer but someone who shared Rumsfeld's vision on Transformation.

Schoomaker took over as COS in August 2003. Abazaid had been CENTCOM CC for less than a month.

Given what we see of him in FIASCO, Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld were peas in a pod. And he was then riding high in the public opinion polls, having led victorious armies in Afghanistan and toppling Saddam. He wanted to get out and cash in.

Dec. 6: Tim Russert, NBC News Washington bureau chief and moderator of "Meet the Press," talks with ...

Tano already beat me to this bit, Steven, but I could not disagree with you more. Rumsfeld's incredible hubris, not his incompetence, will be what history remembers. He is the utterly classic case of a guy who assumes that because he's the boss, he knows more about the job & how to do it than anyone who works for him. His arrogance alienated legions of competent senior officers... all you have to do is go back and look at the circle-jerk that went on to find someone, anyone, willing to pin on a 4th star and take over as Army CoS after Shinseki's clouded departure. Franks retired rather than take the job. Abizaid bailed & said he needed to stay in CENTCOM. The Vice-Chief (IIRC) retired rather than take the promotion. In the end, they brought Schoomaker back from retirement.

Let me say that again - they couldn't find a single 3- or 4-star general in the entire active US Army who was both willing and competent to become Chief of Staff and work with Rumsfeld on a daily basis. What does that say about the man's leadership abilities?

And of course, he couldn't resist using the Iraq war as a demonstration project for his new force, revealing dramatically the failure to see the larger picture - using appropriately sized and weighted forces for the particular mission at hand.

His tenure has led to an utter disaster. But he probably has been the target of more criticism than he really deserves. The true incompetent in this whole sorry mess has been his boss.

Varus was a good leader. But in a world with carrier pigeons and everyone looking to armchair-gladiator the war, how could he get a fair shake?