PETERS ON RUMSFELD….Ralph Peters, a military analyst generally respected by both left and right, isn’t impressed with Donald Rumsfeld:
The least credible version of the war – at least outside of the Arab media – is that repeated daily in the Pentagon. While there should be no doubt that American and allied armed forces are winning impressively, OSD’s adherence to a party line of almost Stalinesque rigidity becomes more untenable with each press briefing.
….As it became evident that more ground troops would have been a great help to the campaign, the secretary of defense denied any responsibility for capping troop levels. This is breathtaking: the first-ever doctrine of secretarial infallibility. It is a display of moral cowardice by an arrogant man who was dangerously wrong.
(“OSD” is the Office of the Secretary of Defense.)
Peters is quite clear, and rightly so, I think, that we will win the war. However, he’s equally clear that he thinks Rumsfeld was badly mistaken in promoting an amateurish strategy that involved ridiculously low troop levels, and he calls the final operational plan an “ill-tempered compromise.”
Coming from a guy like Peters, this is a pretty searing indictment of Rumsfeld. Things don’t look good for him.
