Magox Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...d=moreheadlines I saw Gibbs pusyfooting around this line of questioning last week, and to say the least, it was pretty !@#$ing lame. In a continuing war of words between former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Obama White House, a spokesman for Rumsfeld this morning suggested that President Obama owes an apology to an ousted general and assailed the administration for being loose with facts. Last week during his speech on Afghanistan policy, President Obama said that during the previous administration, “commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.” Rumsfeld, who left office in 2006, called that “a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as Secretary of Defense.” The president had been talking about troop requests made after Rumsfeld left office by then-Gen. David McKiernan, as we covered last month. On Wednesday, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “General McKiernan specifically had a fairly substantial request for upwards of 20,000 forces, which we couldn't meet because they just weren't there. They were in Iraq.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates on NBC Sunday said "there was, there was, throughout my, my time as secretary of Defense under President Bush, an outstanding request from General McKiernan...Because of the commitment of forces in Iraq, we did not have the, the ability to meet the resource needs in Afghanistan." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, instead of explaining that the president had not been talking about Rumsfeld’s reign and trying to quell the dispute, did the opposite, saying Rumsfeld should answer questions as to “whether he thinks that the effort in Afghanistan was sufficiently resourced during his tenure as Secretary of Defense.” And there are certainly questions to be asked. This morning, Keith Urbahn in Rumsfeld's office continued this back-and-forth, saying in a statement, “White House officials are not credible in denying President Obama’s intended meaning when he said on Wednesday night that ‘commanders’ were ‘repeatedly’ denied additional troops and resources in Afghanistan. "The administration now claims President Obama was actually referring to denials of troops by his own Secretary of Defense in 2008," Urbahn said. "This is obviously not what the President meant. If it is what the President meant, he owes an apology to General McKiernan for dismissing him, for it was General McKiernan who sought additional forces in 2008. He concluded: "This looseness with the facts seems to be a pattern in the current administration’s efforts to blame their challenges on their predecessors. Nearly one year into this administration, that approach is wearing thin. Afghanistan has always posed challenges, but in the judgment of the commanders at the time, Afghanistan was properly resourced for at least the first five years of the conflict. Those resources were aligned with proper and achievable goals: eliminating an al-Qaida sanctuary and preventing further terrorist attacks against the United States.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDBillzFan Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Implied versus inferred. Yet again. Dude's a master at it. You're seeing the same thing with his comments about getting out of Afghanistan by July 2011. "It's not really an exit strategy. It's just a date that we will use to evaluate things and start removing people. But we won't really be removing them so much as taking them out depending on situations, or not taking them out but getting us totally out in time for 2012 elections. Or something like that. Hey, why don't you guys all just discuss what you think I meant and I'll let you know if you're warm or cold, mmmkay?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frit0 Bandit0 Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Rumsfeld was an avid supporter of special-operations forces (SOF). Against Navy resistance, he led the effort to refit ballistic-missile submarines with SEAL delivery vehicles in place of Trident nuclear warheads, to make it easier to land special operators on beachheads. His passion for SOF was shared by a number of Democrats, including Senators Carl Levin, John Kerry, and Jack Reed. With Congress's support, Rumsfeld got SOF's budget doubled, from $3.5 billion to $7 billion: proof that just because Donald Rumsfeld believed something, didn't mean it was wrong. Where Rumsfeld's shortcoming were and part/or maybe much of what led to his demise was his understanding(lack of) of COIN by 2004. His idea of handling this red headed step child of warfare was to treat it as a low level task and drop it off in the lap of a much dismayed USSOC. At that point USSOC understood that the immensity of developing a COIN strategy was not understood or appreciated by Rumsfeld, and began to keep their distance. Those interested, a very informative read What Rumsfeld Got Right ALSO!! - An hour with Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen with Charlie Rose I am a fan of Rumsfeld but he had some very serious shortcomings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska_Darin_Is_Gay Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Newsflash-Obama constantly lies through his teeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magox Posted December 7, 2009 Author Share Posted December 7, 2009 Rumsfeld was an avid supporter of special-operations forces (SOF). Against Navy resistance, he led the effort to refit ballistic-missile submarines with SEAL delivery vehicles in place of Trident nuclear warheads, to make it easier to land special operators on beachheads. His passion for SOF was shared by a number of Democrats, including Senators Carl Levin, John Kerry, and Jack Reed. With Congress's support, Rumsfeld got SOF's budget doubled, from $3.5 billion to $7 billion: proof that just because Donald Rumsfeld believed something, didn't mean it was wrong. Where Rumsfeld's shortcoming were and part/or maybe much of what led to his demise was his understanding(lack of) of COIN by 2004. His idea of handling this red headed step child of warfare was to treat it as a low level task and drop it off in the lap of a much dismayed USSOC. At that point USSOC understood that the immensity of developing a COIN strategy was not understood or appreciated by Rumsfeld, and began to keep their distance. Those interested, a very informative read What Rumsfeld Got Right ALSO!! - An hour with Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen with Charlie Rose I am a fan of Rumsfeld but he had some very serious shortcomings I like Rumsfeld as well, he has a no nonsense approach, however he seriously underestimated the gameplan of the Iraqi insurgency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaska Darin Posted December 8, 2009 Share Posted December 8, 2009 Newsflash-Obama constantly lies through his teeth. Which makes him <gasp> just like pretty much every other politician. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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