By Ken C. Arnold Santa Monica
Like a taciturn 19th Century shopkeeper, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brought a shrill two-fisted mentality to managing the Pentagon.
His hyper-thrifty philosophy of trying to win the Iraq War on the cheap became more important than actually winning.
Delighting in front of the camera at the presentation of his own simplistic theories, he seems at times more interested in proving himself right than in dealing with battlefield realities.
Lack of investment on the front end has cost the Pentagon and the American taxpayer dearly on the backside. The art of war that has been taught to future generals at West Point from the beginning is easily tossed aside after being branded as “irrelevant” by the dismissive Rumsfeld.
His empty repetition of self-serving platitudes when confronted by the media about present conditions in Iraq is intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible.
He obviously sees himself as a superior being who needs no consul. In Rumsfeld’s view, no one seems to “get it” except for he and President Bush. Future historians probably will get it because a failure in Iraq will mean professional failure for Rumsfeld and it will also mean a failed presidency for George Bush.
Rumsfeld’s learning curve does not show much improvement over time, nor does the president’s.
Rumsfeld must go because he has made himself too much a part of pseudo military theory that just isn’t working. Wars are won by pouring on the money, not by withholding it. That’s how Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War, and that’s how Franklin D. Roosevelt won World War II.
An easy victory and successful post-war phase in Iraq has been ruined by Rumsfeld and George Bush.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 24, 2006. Read the original PDF.