A soldier's question catches Defense secretary off guard

While half of the members of the Bush Cabinet were asked or encouraged to leave at the end of the administration's first term, the secretary of Defense, whose miscalculations dwarfed those of his colleagues, survived. Finally, Donald H. Rumsfeld is being taken to task.
A question posed by one soldier at a town hall meeting in Kuwait may turn out to be Rumsfeld's undoing. His supporters tried to deflect attention from the issue by harping on the fact that an embedded reporter helped phrase the question. But it was easy to see through that smokescreen. For one thing, the reporter didn't make up the question, it was inspired by concerns the soldiers were voicing. For another, the soldier's question got a hearty round of applause from other soldiers. And for a third, President Bush said he thought it was a reasonable question.
The question, posed by Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson, 31, of Nashville, was this: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"
Rumsfeld came across as arrogant, callous and disingenuous. "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have," Rumsfeld replied.
Matter of choice
But this was a war that Rumsfeld and President Bush chose to pursue. The timing was theirs -- and it was pursued despite serious questions that were being raised at home and abroad as to its advisability.
The administration eagerly accepted assurances from its handpicked Iraqi exiles that U.S. soldiers would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. The result of listening to people who were telling them what they wanted to hear was that Rumsfeld had too few forces on the ground when Baghdad fell, and virtually none of those soldiers had armored vehicles.
Rumsfeld's contention that you go to war with the Army you have also belies President Bush's contention throughout the 2004 campaign that the administration provided every resource in manpower and materials that generals planning the war said they would need. Perhaps, but if no general said he'd need more armored Humvees, maybe it was because he saw what happened to those generals who said they'd need more troops than Rumsfeld was inclined to commit.
As is so often the case in Washington, Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., was one of the first to say what needed to be said. He said he has no confidence in Rumsfeld, based not only on the lack of equipment, but on Rumsfeld's continuing refusal to recognize that tens of thousands of additional troops are required to battle the insurgency in Iraq.
It's time for President Bush to reassess his level of confidence in Rumsfeld. If any cabinet secretary deserved to be shown the door based on performance, it was Rumsfeld.