0
WASHINGTON, March 30: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday rejected the allegations that he was micro-managing the war from Washington and had turned down requests from his commanders in the Gulf to send more troops.
Asked if he was telling his commanders what to do instead of allowing them to do the planning, Mr Rumsfeld said: “No, the planners are in the Central Command. They come up with their proposals and every single thing they’ve requested has in fact happened.”
Reports in the US media on Sunday suggested that the Central Command, which is responsible for the war in Iraq, wanted more time and more troops but Mr Rumsfeld rejected their request by saying: “We’ve got to go in quicker and lighter.”
“The reality is that it is the plan that was developed by Gen Tommy Franks (Commander-in-Chief Central Command). It was worked through the chiefs of staff in Washington. It was looked at carefully by the combatant commanders. It’s been through the National Security Council. It’s our country’s plan. I think the people who are talking about it really are people who haven’t seen it,” Mr Rumsfeld said while responding to media reports criticizing his role in the war.
But despite his denial, defence commentators and retired generals continued to criticize Mr Rumsfeld for keeping his force too small, too weak in armour and too dependent on political decision-making in Washington.
The planners, the critics say, depended too much on the “cakewalk” theory, putting too much emphasis on an expected Iraqi uprising against President Saddam Hussein and were not ready for the fierce resistance that the US forces are now facing in Iraq.
More than a dozen officers interviewed by American newspapers and television channels, including a senior officer in Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld took significant risks by leaving key units in the US and Germany at the start of the war.
They said this had resulted in an invasion force that was too small, strung out, underprotected, undersupplied and awaiting tens of thousands of reinforcements who were weeks away.
“The civilians in (Mr Rumsfeld’s office) vetoed the priority and sequencing of joint forces into the region — as it was requested by the war fighters — and manipulated it to support their priorities,” a senior military officer, who asked not to be named, told the Washington Post.
America’s most prestigious magazine, New Yorker, reported that Mr Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from the Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armour would be needed.
ROLE UNDER SCRUTINY: Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s influence in crafting the plan for the Iraq war is facing scrutiny as it becomes apparent the campaign will not be as quick or easy as some US leaders had predicted, adds Reuters.
Some retired top officers are voicing in public an opinion harboured in private by some current military officers — that Mr Rumsfeld’s bold vision of a sleeker, high-tech military prompted him to take unnecessary risks in the size and nature of the force sent to topple Saddam Hussein.
Retired Army Gen Barry McCaffrey, who commanded an infantry division in the Gulf War before overseeing anti-drug policies under former president Bill Clinton, said in an interview with Reuters: “At the end of the day the question arises: why would you do this operation with inadequate power?”
“Because you don’t have time to get them there? But we did. Because you don’t have the forces? But we did. Because you’re trying to save money on a military operation that will be $200 billion before it’s done?”
“Or is it because you have such a strong ideological view and you’re so confident in your views that you disregard the vehement military advice from, particularly, army generals who you don’t think are very bright.”
Mr Rumsfeld has clashed with some top officers, particularly in the army, during a two-year tenure as defence secretary. He has sought to reimpose strict civilian leadership over a uniformed military that some conservatives believed had run the show at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration.
The flash point has been his quest to bring what he calls “transformation” to the military. He has a vision of a military liberated from its Cold War past, with smaller, swifter forces, high-tech weapons, air power and special operations.
In developing a war plan, Mr Rumsfeld rejected the advice of many top officers that he field a force more in line with the half-million troops used in the 1991 Gulf War. Mr Rumsfeld favoured a much smaller force. Analysts said Mr Rumsfeld and Gen Tommy Franks reached a middle ground, fielding a force about half the size of the 1991 one.
“Mr Rumsfeld basically cut in half what the army said that it needed for the war. Basically, he has the view the army is too big, too heavy, too cumbersome,” said analyst Lawrence Korb of Council on Foreign Relations, who served as assistant secretary of defence in the Reagan administration.
