Day: September 25, 2006

A string of retired military officers took the stand at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearings to enumerate all the ways Donald Rumsfeld sucks.

“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said…

A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ….”

Well yeah, but except for that —

“Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making,” he added…

[Retired Col. Paul X.] Hammes said in his prepared remarks that not providing the best equipment was a “serious moral failure on the part of our leadership.”

…Batiste, Eaton and Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq…

[Batiste] said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.

4,000 Troops are Being Extended

And speaking of the Bush administration’s flawed plan for Iraq, it looks like 4,000 troops scheduled to come home aren’t. Someone leaked the crappy news to the press.

The Army has extended the combat tours of about 4,000 soldiers who would otherwise be returning home, a defense official said Monday.

The 1st Brigade of 1st Armored Division, which is operating in the vicinity of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, will be kept in place for several weeks beyond their scheduled departure…

The 1st Brigade…was extended to allow its replacement unit, from the 3rd Infantry Division, the minimum 12 months between overseas tours, the official said. The 3rd Infantry has served two tours in Iraq, including the initial invasion of the country in March 2003…

Until sectarian violence spiked early this year, Bush administration officials had voiced hopes that this election year would see significant U.S. troop reductions in what has become a widely unpopular war.

The British Have Saved Our Asses Again

One of the S-K-Ps from the Afghanistan prison right under our noses last year was killed by troops from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment.

[Omar] Farouq was one of four al Qaeda suspects who broke out of the prison in Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, in July 2005.

It was an embarrassing incident for the U.S. military, and the Pentagon waited until November to confirm that the man had escaped. The delay in releasing his name upset Indonesia, which had arrested Farouq in 2002 and then turned him over to the United States — which then shipped him to Afghanistan.

After escaping, the al Qaeda leader and the three others had managed to evade a massive manhunt. They later appeared in a video sent to the Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya and boasted of their feat.

It’s the incompetence, stupid:

The Army’s top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

“This is unusual, but hell, we’re in unusual times,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in the budget discussions.

Schoomaker failed to submit the budget plan by an Aug. 15 deadline. The protest followed a series of cuts in the service’s funding requests by both the White House and Congress over the last four months.

According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army’s budget this year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker’s request a 41% increase over current levels.

“It’s incredibly huge,” said the Army official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity when commenting on internal deliberations. “These are just incredible numbers.”