Rumsfeld is gone

[QabiilDiid]

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said Wednesday.

 

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Officials said Robert Gates, former head of the CIA, would replace Rumsfeld.

 

The development occurred one day after midterm elections that cost Republicans control of the House, and possibly the Senate, as well. Surveys of voters at polling places said opposition to the war was a significant contributor to the Democratic victory.

 

President Bush was expected to announce Rumsfeld's departure and Gates' nomination at an afternoon news conference. Administration officials notified congressional officials in advance.

 

Last week, as he campaigned to save the Republican majority, Bush declared that Rumsfeld would remain at the Pentagon through the end of his term.

 

Rumsfeld, 74, was in his second tour of duty as defense chief. He first held the job a generation ago, when he was appointed by President Ford.

 

Gates is the president of Texas A&M University and a close friend of the Bush family. He served as CIA director for Bush's father from 1991 until 1993.

 

Gates first joined the CIA in 1966 and served in the intelligence community for more than a quarter century, under six presidents.

 

His nomination must be confirmed by the Senate.

 

Whatever confidence Bush retained in Rumsfeld, the Cabinet officer's support in Congress had eroded significantly. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., the House speaker-in-waiting, said at her first post-election news conference that Bush should replace the top civilian leadership at the Pentagon.

 

And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who had intervened in the past to shore up Rumsfeld, issued a statement saying, "Washington must now work together in a bipartisan way — Republicans and Democrats — to outline the path to success in Iraq."

[Shakti]

Nayruus, Source plz. thanks

[QabiilDiid]

BBC Somali section...the above part I just coped and pasted....it was war deg deg ah oo President Bush has just told the world..

[Shakti]

^Thanks

[Jabhad]

Iraq exit the No 1 priority for Rumsfeld successor

By Philippe Naughton

 

 

 

 

Robert Gates testifying before Congress as CIA Director in 1992 (AP Photo/John Duricka)

 

Robert Gates, the 63-year-old career intelligence officer chosen to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, takes over with the clearest of missions: get American troops out of Iraq as quickly and cleanly as possible.

 

Mr Gates was, subject to Congressional approval, propelled into the top ranks of the Bush Administration today as Secretary of Defence only hours after voters handed President Bush what he agreed himself was a "thumping" in mid-term elections.

 

 

 

The deeply unpopular Mr Rumsfeld, seen by his enemies as a reckless warmonger and attacked even by senior military officers for strategic blunders, was the obvious scapegoat for the electoral meltdown. Since the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, more than 2,800 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

 

Although Mr Bush told a White House press conference this afternoon that Mr Rumsfeld's departure should not be taken as a signal that America would be withdrawing from Iraq, he made it clear that the former CIA director had not been chosen as continuity candidate.

 

The President freely admitted that his Iraq policy was "not working well enough, fast enough" and needed new leadership.

 

Although Mr Gates is currently serving as president of Texas A&M University, he has been active recently as a member of the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker, the Bush family confidant and former Secretary of State.

 

That Group has yet to report, but its draft recommendations have been widely leaked and amount to a radical reshaping of US Iraq policy that would have been unthinkable a year ago - including a large reduction of US troop levels and a diplomatic push to engage Iraq's neighbours, including Iran and Syria.

 

The Group has also pushed for the Iraqi Government to take more responsibility for its own affairs, politically and militarily.

 

Since those recommendations have not been formally given to the White House, Mr Bush has not had to accept or reject them. But the Administration has noticeably changed its language on Iraq - Mr Bush no longer speaks of "staying the course" for example - and Mr Rumsfeld's departure allows the unthinkable to become policy.

 

And it would be unthinkable for Mr Bush to appoint his new Pentagon chief from among the group's members if he did not agree with their conclusions.

 

Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1943, Mr Gates joined the CIA in 1966 and rose from working-level officer to become its director, also serving as a member of the National Security Council.

 

He was first nominated as CIA director in 1987 by Ronald Reagan but withdrew amid questions over his and the CIA’s role in the secret sales of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to Nicaragua’s Contra rebels - the accusation against him being that he hid the truth about the Iran-Contract affair from Congress.

 

He was nominated again by the first President Bush and led the CIA from 1991 to 1993.

 

Mr Bush described him today as "a steady, solid leader who can help make the necessary adjustments in our approach to meet our current challenges".

[RedSea]

Yep he is gone.

 

Good thing he is gone,allthough enough damage done already.

[General Duke]

Rumsfeld led US into morass in Iraq by Jim Mannion

Wed Nov 8, 5:43 PM ET

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Stubborn and cock-sure, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dominated the US military in an era of unprecedented challenges, but was faulted for not heeding its warnings as he led the United States into a morass in Iraq.

 

 

Rumsfeld's resignation was announced after a stinging vote of "no confidence" in legislative elections Tuesday that saw Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate for the first time in 14 years.

 

In bowing out, Rumsfeld acknowledged he had become a lightning rod of opposition to the war.

 

"It recalls to mind the statement by Winston Churchill, something to the effect that: I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof," he said.

 

The first war of the 21st century "is not well-known, it was not well-understood; it is complex for people to comprehend," Rumsfeld said at the White House with President George W. Bush and his successor, former Central Intelligence Agency director Robert Gates.

 

"America is safer and the world is more secure because of the service and the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld," Bush said.

 

Though Rumsfeld had offered his resignation to the president twice, before and after a prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bush stood by him up to the elections even as calls for his resignation mounted, including among Republicans.

 

Military resentment with Rumsfeld boiled over earlier this year into a public revolt by a string of retired former commanders who called for his resignation. But Rumsfeld, a consummate bureacratic infighter, survived that challenge.

 

His resignation marks the end of a remarkable career for the combative 74-year-old, who twice served as defense secretary in tenures that were 25 years apart.

 

He was in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 when airliners commandeered by Al-Qaeda hijackers flew into the World Trade Center in New York and then the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack ever on US soil.

 

In less than a month, he launched US forces in a war against Al-Qaeda that toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in December 2001 and mobilized the US military for a global war on terrorism.

 

He pulled back US forces from Europe and repositioned them for a turbulent post-Cold War era populated by suicide bombers, insurgents and "rogue" states armed with nuclear weapons.

 

In his nearly six years in office, Rumsfeld has dominated the US defense establishment like few before him.

 

He is the oldest person to serve as secretary of defense, and he was also the youngest when he began his first tenure as defense secretary in 1975 at the age of 43.

 

The two stints made him the longest serving defense secretary after Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War-era defense chief who presided over the United States' only defeat in a foreign war.

 

Like McNamara, Rumsfeld was supremely self-confident, often abrasive, and not popular with the military brass, whom he prodded and poked into line and sometimes upbraided in public, or with members of Congress from either party.

 

Americans embraced his tough-guy persona during the Afghan war, but it faded in the lead up of the controversial invasion of Iraq to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction that later turned out not to exist.

 

Just weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld dismissed a warning by the army chief of staff that several hundred thousand troops were required to occupy Iraq, calling the estimate "far from the mark."

 

In remarks that would prove prophetic, Rumsfeld told reporters it was "not knowable" how many troops would be needed.

 

"We have no idea how long the war will last. We don't know to what extent there may or may not be weapons of mass destruction used. We don't know -- have any idea whether or not there would be ethnic strife.

 

"We don't know exactly how long it would take to find weapons of mass destruction and destroy them. There are so many variables that it is not knowable."

 

But he said it was "not logical" that as many troops would be needed to pacify the country as to win the war and "any idea that it's several hundred thousand over any sustained period is simply not the case."

 

The United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003 with a force of fewer than 100,000 troops. Baghdad fell quickly, and the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fell amid an orgy of looting.

 

But the failure to commit enough troops to secure the country is now widely viewed as a central mistake, allowing a Sunni insurgency to take hold and setting in motion a spiral of violence that has seen no let up.

 

"Many of us said we needed more troops over there for a long time," said Senator John McCain, a Republican who had lost confidence in Rumsfeld.

 

"We now find out that that was the case and the military people were recommending it strongly," he said.

 

As of Wednesday, 2,836 US servicemembers had lost their lives in Iraq. Another 288 have been killed in Afghanistan where the Taliban is making a comeback nearly five years after their fall.

 

In Iraq, Rumsfeld will be leaving a country that is on the brink of civil war between ruling Shiites and minority Sunni despite US efforts to build an Iraqi security force capable of stabilizing the country.

 

More than 140,000 US troops remain on the ground, increasingly drawn into the middle of a brutal sectarian conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

rumsfeild was not the problem but a scapegoat. Although secretary of defense may give advice, at the end of the day, he has to take the orders of the president and the cabinet. If you've heard of the "buck stops here" you know people should be angry with bush or atleast both. by the way, who of is in charge of DOD, an exit is not an option. Its sad but true that the US must at the very least continue to be a referee for this shia and sunni war.