General’s Defending Rumsfeld Aginst the Hexagon Intifada
After last weeks PR offensive by 6 retired Generals, occasionally referred to as the “Hexagon,” calling for Rumsfeld’s head, two retired general have stepped up to defend him.
In Sunday’s New York Times, Lt. Gen Michael DeLong (USMC Retired) writes:
“As the No. 2 general at United States Central Command from the Sept. 11 attacks through the Iraq war, I was the daily “answer man” to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I briefed him twice a day; few people had as much interaction with him as I did during those two years….
When I was at Centcom, the people who needed to have access to Secretary Rumsfeld got it, and he carefully listened to our arguments.
Mr. Rumsfeld does not give in easily in disagreements, either, and he will always force you to argue your point thoroughly. This can be tough for some people to deal with. I witnessed many heated but professional conversations between my immediate commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, and Mr. Rumsfeld — but the secretary always deferred to the general on war-fighting issues.
Ultimately, I believe that a tough defense secretary makes commanders tougher in their convictions. Was Donald Rumsfeld a micromanager? Yes. Did he want to be involved in all of the decisions? Yes. But Mr. Rumsfeld never told people in the field what to do.”
General DeLong has been joined by Richard B. Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force General.
The AP writes that Myers, “dismissed criticism that military leaders failed to stand up to Rumsfeld and President Bush when they disagreed with those civilian officials.”
Myers is quoted by the AP as saying, “You’d have to believe that everybody in the chain of command is intimidated, and I don’t believe that.
“We gave him our best military advice, and I think that’s what we’re obligated to do. If we don’t do that, we should be shot.”
The ‘drive by media’ spent last week covering all six of the retired generals who criticized Rumsfeld, is anyone naive enough to think the same amount of ink and bandwidth will be given to the generals who support Rumsfeld?
The media will barely cover anyone supporting Rumsfeld because that does not fit their preferred narrative.
Another point the legacy media will never cover is that there are currently 6,995 retired General/Admiral Officers.
In other words, .00084 of the retired Flag officers have called for Rumsfeld to resign.
Not exactly a mandate, except with the media.
Even if you only conisder the recently retired flag officers, the 847 under 60 years old, only .007 have called for Rumsfeld to resign.
Some may say that because of a few of these Generals served in Iraq, they should be given extra weight. But I would suggest that they travel to Camp Victory Baghdad and hang around the Aw Faw palace counting stars hang around the International Zone counting stars.
There are a lot of Generals out there.
While the steam from the ‘Hexagon Intifada’ my die down, it will become a standard democrat talking point until the first Tuesday following the first Monday in Novemeber.