Donald Rumsfeld is at the centre of a Republican firestorm over his handling of the war in Iraq, with pressure appearing to mount in Washington for him to quit as Defence Secretary.
Although Republicans have publicly stood by United States President George Bush’s decision to go to war throughout the growing death toll among US troops and spiralling violence on the ground, the acerbic Pentagon chief has become a focus of anxieties about the conduct of the war and about the future of Iraq.
Unease about Rumsfeld reached critical proportions when the former Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, told businessmen in Mississippi that the defence secretary should be replaced in the new year.
Lott is from the centre of the Republican party, and was a powerful figure until forced to step down as Senate leader in 2002.
”I’m not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld,” he told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce. ”I don’t think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.”
He added: ”I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so.”
Earlier this week, Rumsfeld was the object of a withering attack by the editor of the Weekly Standard, the in-house organ of the neo-conservative movement, accusing him of ”arrogant” buck-passing.
”Surely Don Rumsfeld is not the defence secretary Bush should want to have for the remainder of his second term,” said William Kristol.
Last spring, at the height of the scandal over the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, Bush resisted calls for Rumsfeld to stand down.
He reaffirmed his faith in the man after his re-election victory, keeping him on as Pentagon chief, and it is unlikely that the White House will want to signal a change of heart before Iraq holds elections next month.
”The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job, and that’s why he asked him to continue serving during this time of war,” said White House spokesperson Scott McLellan.
But the latest crisis over his temperament and management style may prove difficult to brush off, when many Republicans are wondering aloud how US troops are going to manage to stabilise Iraq in the coming months.
Rumsfeld’s critics in Congress are on their way home for the holidays, where they will meet families of soldiers serving in Iraq who are outraged by duty-tour extensions made necessary by troop shortages, and by complaints of lack of armour and weaponry on trucks and other ”soft” vehicles used by support troops who face guerrilla attacks unforeseen by Pentagon planners.
The manpower problem in the national guard is so acute that it has upped its signing bonuses and tripled re-enlistment bonuses. The chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, has asked for $20-billion over three years to replace equipment destroyed in Iraq.
”Otherwise, the guard will be broken and not ready the next time it’s needed, either here at home or for war,” he said.
On Thursday, Rumsfeld was rebuked by a member of the Senate armed services committee, the moderate Republican Susan Collins, over the Pentagon’s failure to provide sufficient armoured Humvees.
The latest crisis to enfold Rumsfeld was provoked by his airy response last week to a member of the Tennessee National guard who complained about having to forage in scrapheaps for armour for Humvees.
Rumsfeld replied that countries go to war with the army they have, ”not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time”. — Guardian Unlimited Â