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Key generals failed to persuade Abizaid or Franks, so don't blame Feith, Wolfowtiz, Rumsbeld or Cheney!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111001388_2.html

This quote is one of the most interesting and powerful made thus far during the Iraq war.  The USA is facing challenges because Franks lacked good judgment and all the Joint Chiefs lacked persuasive skill or credibility.

Errors in the course which everyone failed to correct.

So how did Mr. Rumsfeld treat these four star generals.  The Observer thinks Rumsfeld chipped away and chipped away, even implying dismissal, until every general lost their nerve to stand up to Mr. Rumsfeld.  The Observer believes Mr. Rumsfeld used “the question” as a weapon and the generals as a team were not prepared.  The USA would have been well served if the generals had said, “Plan K is our recommendation.”  Because we have civilian control, this statement would have been followed by unrelenting questioning by Mr. Rumsfeld.  To which the four star generals should have said, “Plan K is our recommendation.”  No one from the military side was politically astute enough to force Mr. Rumsfeld to give a written order.  If such written order proved unlawful or egregiously injurious to the US Constitution and to the survival of our constitutional republic, any four star general with the courage of his convictions would have resigned.  Rather, we seen to have a culture at the four star level where no one has a bottom-line recommendation and everyone is willing "try and to do their best" under the constraints of thel atest downward revision because “it is better to stay on the inside.”

With so much concentrated power in the Secretary of Defense, the Observer is not so sure that this time the generals pursued a wise long term strategy, especially in light of Mr. Feith’s revelation in the above article how deeply he and Mr. Rumsfeld feared the political consequence of facing down a general or generals willing to, dare we say it, draw a line in the sand and make a hard recommendation.