Rumsfeld -- Secretary of Bad Moves

I was going to post something completely different today, but with all the replay of the Rumsfeld visit to the troops, I couldn’t resist.

Thanks to Eric Hananoki’s blog post, we’re reminded of a speech President Bush gave over a year ago to our military:

These Senators are strong supporters of your mission. They appreciate what you do. They vote for strong defense budgets, because they know what I know -- that any time we put our troops into harm's way, you must have the best training, the best equipment, the best possible pay. (Applause.)

Note that this was over one year ago. The President understood, or at least claimed to understand, that we have a gap to fill in terms of our military’s preparedness—the simple fact that it is being addressed means that it is a problem for somebody. The Administration had an entire year to get it right—or at least get the appearance right. My instincts tell me that they’re either really stuck on Rumsfeld’s Transformation policy or they truly just don’t have the resources. Either way, I suspect they were just hoping to make it past the election. In this sense, it’s clear that destroying Kerry on the 87 billion dollar issue was the key to building a distraction plan and side-stepping the real issue. After all, Kerry was not the Secretary of Defense or the President of the United States when the issue came to light.

I’m not a military guy, as you all know, and don’t claim to understand the in and outs of military preparations and defense budget issues. Based on books I’ve read, like Plan of Attack, and my understanding of policy reforms, I have a basic understanding of Rumsfeld’s Transformation policy, which I suspect plays a big role in the criticism we’re taking with regards to the size of our forces abroad and the resources they’re given. I know that the administration has had difficulty gathering political support for this war—and lack of political support usually translates to lack of funding (or a crippling of ability to ask for more of it). Where’s the appropriated money going? Are they not able to afford the armor? Is it that they would rather sacrifice a dozen national guardsmen rather than inflating the budget for a war with limited support? I have no idea. In any case, the outcome is the same: people get bad wounds or die.

Our government should say we haven’t done well enough. I applaud Rumsfeld for taking questions from people outside of the US press—which in itself is a BIG step for this administration—and for trying to answer the hard questions. Is there any way he can take a stab at mine?