Rumsfeld ouster opens new chapter on Iraq war
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation announcement Wednesday after voters delivered the Bush administration a stinging rebuke on its handling of the Iraq war opens a new chapter in the war and the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill.
Bush immediately nominated former CIA Director Robert Gates, now president of Texas A&M University, to replace Rumsfeld, who will serve until Gates is confirmed by the Senate or the process is well under way, which Bush said he hoped would occur before the year’s end.
“His experience has prepared him well for this new assignment,” Bush said of Gates, 63, who has served in a variety of national security jobs under six previous presidents and ran the CIA under the first President Bush during the first Gulf war.
Gates, who has a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University, was praised as a highly competent professional, but some military experts said he has been criticized for overestimating Soviet capability during the Cold War.
“He’s really an intelligence professional who has a deep understanding of government processes and is fairly highly regarded in terms of what he achieved on the job,” said Loren Thompson, who oversees security studies at the Lexington Institute think tank.
Rumsfeld’s resignation raises questions about how much Bush is willing to change course in Iraq and work with the new Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.
Democrats won the House on Tuesday and could take the Senate depending on how the Virginia race breaks.
House Democrats have promised to use subpoena power, which Republicans have shunned, to grill Bush administration officials on an array of subjects from the flawed prewar intelligence to contractor abuse and prosecution of the war.
“I welcome the long overdue change in leadership at the Pentagon — now we need a change in policy,” said House Speaker-to-be Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., in line to become Senate majority leader if Democrats win the chamber, said, “Unfortunately, the course in Iraq cannot be changed solely by changing personnel. We also need a change in policy, if this resignation is to mean anything for our troops or for the Iraqi people.”
Without going into specifics, Bush said Wednesday that he remains steadfast in his plan for victory in Iraq, although he will “continue to adjust to achieve the objective.”
“I’m committed to victory,” Bush said, while adding, “I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there.”
Gates is a member of the Bush-appointed Iraq Study Group, an independent task force led by former Secretary of State James Baker charged with making recommendations for improving Iraq policy and strategy. The group is expected to report to Bush in the coming weeks.
Bush said he had been talking with Rumsfeld and Gates several days before the elections about the changes but held the announcement until after the polls closed.
“I didn’t want to interject a major decision in the final days of the campaign,” Bush said.
Rumsfeld, a 74-year-old multimillionaire, said service as defense secretary under Bush “has been the highest honor of my life.”
Rumsfeld came to the Pentagon for the second time as secretary in 2001 with a single mission: dismantle the armor-heavy Cold War force and prepare for rapid-strike modern warfare. He served as defense secretary from 1975 to 1977 under President Ford.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he became an aggressive force in the war against terrorism, advocating for the kind of lighter, faster fighting force that initially crushed the Iraqi army but was unable to contain the chaos that followed.
His insistence on keeping U.S. troop levels in Iraq at between 125,000 and 145,000 despite calls by some generals for almost twice that number put him at odds with respected military thinkers such as former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, who authored the doctrine of overwhelming force.
Initially considered by Bush to head the CIA, Rumsfeld was tapped for the Pentagon because he had the management style needed to undertake a massive restructuring referred to as “transformation.”
Aside from a stint as a Navy pilot, Rumsfeld has spent his professional life fighting conformity by upending organizations.
As a young congressman in the 1960s, he ruffled feathers by openly bucking party leadership.
Hired for his chutzpah by then-President Nixon, he reorganized the Office of Economic Opportunity by slashing jobs and refocusing the bureaucracy. In private industry, at G.D. Searle and Co., a biotech company, he fired hundreds of executives.
“Rumsfeld was brought to the Pentagon to be an assertive, powerful, aggressive leader,” said James Mann, author of the acclaimed book on Bush’s war cabinet, “Rise of the Vulcans.”
He has done so without apologies.
As he sought to make the Army leaner and meaner under transformation, Rumsfeld skipped over active-duty generals and coaxed from retirement Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a career special operations soldier, to be Army chief of staff.
“The idea of bringing a retired person out of retirement to serve as chief of staff of the Army was stunning, and a lot of people didn’t like it,” Rumsfeld said several months ago in defense of transformation. “The fact that he was a Special Forces officer, a joint officer, added to the attitudes.”
Said Mann, “(Rumsfeld) has never been timid about challenging conventional wisdom. But sometimes conventional wisdom turns out to be right.”