Career officer does eye-opening stint inside Pentagon

After eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one time, I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush, Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

However, while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made.

Those observations changed everything.


http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/6424570.htm

The intel community and the military community will help bring Bush down. They have gone too far.

the lies topped off with incompetence, mixed with an unhealthy dose of richard perle control freak arrogance.
what has this nation become?

Tell me the pros aren't pissed at Rummy and his gang...go ahead, just tell me!

:wow:

...do you think we'll see a military/intelligenc swing to the democrats - if only because they MAY believe a democratic administration is less "hand on" and micro-managers?

And what party just "uses the troops"?

I think this is what is partially driving Wesley Clark. I think he has insider info on the real degree of anger and mistrust.

On the other hand, the military knows that Clinton was "hands off". He let the military plan and execute the campaigns in Kosovo and also pulled off Operation Desert Fox which most people forget was pretty successful in destroying any of those sites that Saddam wouldn't let inspectors into. So the Clinton years are probably looking a bit like the "good 'ol days" to the professional military about now.

SSooooooo....another Dem in command might look pretty good right now.

and full of himself than Rumsfeld, it's Wes Clark.

knew it. They got just about everything they wanted out of him; when I heard Bush talking about 'help is on the way,' 'help' meaning himself, I used to wonder what the hell he was talking about. It was kind of a 'ransom of Red Chief' situation. But the top military people got what they wanted in Bush, and then got what they definitely didn't want in Rumsfeld. Yet another example of 'be careful what you wish for.'

Perhaps the ones who are left are Rumsfeldians, or perhaps they will resent seeing so many of their friends and colleagues put out to pasture, and I couldn't blame anyone for disliking sourpuss Rumsfeld and his iron fist. but I bet there are a whole lot of cashiered generals who supported Bush in 2000 who now wish they hadn't. Kind of makes me smile, when I think about all the nonsense surrounding the military absentee ballots.

After all, who doesn't resent interference. Howeever how much military independnece do you want to encourage. Would you really want a military independent of civilian control ?

The reins were held a lot more loosely recently and now a trilion dollars in pentagon money can't be accounted for. More interference, rather then less, might be what is called for.

with the Rumsfeldian leadership. The article echoes what I've heard elsewhere. The political appointees one and two levels down run most government agencies. And in this administration those guys are "true believers". Now don't take offense, but when a small group of Pentagon pros that served there under both Clinton and Bush spoke of their experience, they characterized it variously as going from "idiots to ideologues" and "know nothings to know it alls".

"Hussein is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key decision-makers in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan. Neither may ever be required to answer their accusers, thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress. Ironically, only Saddam Hussein, buried under tons of rubble or in hiding, has a good excuse."

From rantings like from retired officers to e-mails by active duty soldiers in Iraq to Colonel David Hackworth of Soldiers for the Truth.

:bounce::kick::bounce:

Hey is anyone gonna stop this train before it sails
off the cliff?

.......having to work under that kind of pressure. They've probably watched in horror as others spoke up and then had their careers ruined before their very eyes! How did this happen? How did a tyrannt get in office? Well, don't answer that. the Supremes appointed him, how could I forget? The fact that 2 of the justices had sons who were interns of Bush's law firm, should have excluded them from dealing with this matter. Oh... the list is endless. It's hard to keep score!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

This one was sent out to my email list ..

Democrats. I've spent a few years living with them in Hawaii and Guam. (Less contact in CA but some.) Besides being thrown infront of a camera and being ordered or expected to respond in a manner, 95% of the guys I've met, and all the gals, look at the military as a job and want nothing to do with killing or being killed/wounded. It's like 50% of college life forever. Trainings fun but forget the being killed.

Wars are driven by the Military Industrial Complex and their puppet GOP politicians, (Bush, Rumfeld, Cheney, Perle, Gingrich, Hastert, Lott) and their GOP Media Whores, (Fineman, Woodward, Russert). Miltary career personel want nothing to do with war. Other than scum sucking Pentagon leaders who know they will never be in harms way or their children in harms way are for wars. I'd bet 65% of the military voted for Dems last time. 2004 you'll see 95% military vote Dem.

(Sorry not bet, I men Bush Crime Family Future Market Prediction)

http://darker0darker.tripod.com/

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