Scapegoating Rumsfeld, Again

This sort of news really would have more effect if this wasn't clearly a partisan hatchet job. Maybe if it wasn't just a democratic committee and that they had actually had a balanced group testifying with equal numbers of retired generals that are for and against Rumsfled. Can this be seen as anything but a ploy to pull these generals out, again, to reperform their testimony before the election?

Three retired military officers who served in Iraq called today for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, telling a Democratic "oversight hearing" on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon chief bungled planning for the U.S. invasion, dismissed the prospect of an insurgency and sent American troops into the fray with inadequate equipment.

The testimony by the three --two retired Army major generals and a former Marine colonel -- came a day after disclosure of a classified intelligence assessment that concluded the war in Iraq has fueled recruitment of violent Islamic extremists, helping to create a new generation of potential terrorists around the world and worsening the U.S. position.

In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."

I thought their original testimony gave context to the running of the pentagon, but this rehash isn't anything but party politics.

I found a blog at Countercolumn from back in March on these general Eaton's attack on Rumsfeld, and it doesn't appear that Eaton's testimony has changed greatly.

Frankly, Rumsfeld has made mistakes. And in fact the generaly testifying made some mistakes themselves. That type of thing happens in wars. Can we recover from mistakes like the failure to address insurgencies in Iraq? Certainly. It will take more time though, and it's not that the military can't bring this theater to a successful conclusion as much as it is the US public's inability to have sufficient patience to let the military succeed.

In many ways, the greatest generation is making the present generation look especially pathetic.