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Defense Secretary Rumsfeld defended the Bush administration's pre-war planning effort for Iraq before Senate appropriators Wednesday in response to questions raised in a recent RAND Corp., study.

During a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee hearing Rumsfeld lashed out at Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., when he raised questions about issues addressed in the report as well as the pre-war prediction of former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to execute the war plan as well as any post-war conflict.

"I am tired of Shinseki being bandied about," Rumsfeld said. "We have done what the generals on the ground believed to be the right thing."

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in the buildup to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, all the military service chiefs supported the war plan, including Shinseki. Myers said Shinseki only offered his best guess as to the number of troops needed in Iraq after he was pressed by lawmakers. He said Shinseki believed such decisions should be left to the commanders charged with overseeing the contingency plans.

Specter noted that while Congress is supportive of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the recent approval by both chambers of an $81 billion supplemental spending package to pay for the ongoing conflicts, there is "a lot of disquiet out there among the people about what is happening in Iraq, and what is happening with our discretionary budget."

Myers said the department is aggressively pursuing lessons learned from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and working quickly to implement any needed changes. Rumsfeld said the department is anxiously awaiting the supplemental funding and risks running out of money if the legislation is delayed. He noted that by as early as next week some commands might stop hiring, ordering supplies and letting contracts if the funds are not approved, and that the Army has already begun slowing obligations to make funds last in the interim.

COMMENTS

• Sec. Rumsfeld is disingenous to suggest that the commanders all supported the strategy. His marginalization of General Sinseki was a chilling message that anyone who disagreed would meet a similar fate. The history of Iraq is one of miscalculation and mismanagement strategically, politically, and militarily that runs from the White House to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon to the generals who planned and are executing the war. As a historical footnote, Former SecDef Les Aspin was run out of office for refusing to commit armored vehicles in Somalia. By any definition, the misjudgements in troop strengths, equipment needs, and enemy capabilities in the current conflicts have resulted in far more losses and the ultimate outcome in Iraq is no more clear. Ralph L. Timmons Posted April 28, 2005 8:43 AM
• You can believe Rummy if you want but I don't. He talk with forked tongue. GovExec.com reader Posted April 28, 2005 7:09 AM