Rumsfeld comes to his own defense

Bush reiterated his support for the defense secretary.
NEWSDAY
WASHINGTON -- A defiant Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made clear Tuesday he has no intention of resigning despite calls for his ouster, but then got an earful from another batch of retired generals who said he's failed to rally public support for the Iraq war.
Bolstered by an even stronger endorsement Tuesday from President Bush, Rumsfeld took his campaign to keep his job before the cameras at a Pentagon news conference, then met behind closed doors with about 15 retired commanders-turned-TV-commentators.
Rumsfeld charged that the six retired generals calling for his resignation were simply out of the loop and resistant to his style of badly needed change at the Pentagon -- the kind Rumsfeld detailed in a 10-minute address that amounted to the highlights of his term.
But asked if he would consider resigning to spare Bush and fellow Republicans any more controversy heading into the fall elections, Rumsfeld said of the president, "He knows that I serve at his pleasure, and that's that."
Rumsfeld twice before offered to resign during the Abu Ghraib scandal but indicated he wasn't even considering it now. Why not? "Oh, just call it idiosyncratic," he quipped.
Backed by Bush
If Rumsfeld seems confident, he suggested in the closed-door meeting that it's because he has the backing of Bush himself, who once again Tuesday voiced clear support for Rumsfeld.
"I hear the voices, and I read the front page and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider and I decide what's best," Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden as he announced several White House staff changes. "And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of Defense."
Even before this controversy, Rumsfeld's term as secretary of defense was controversial -- not least for the war in Iraq but because of his calls for "transforming" the military into a faster, leaner fighting force. And many of the accomplishments Rumsfeld cited Tuesday in his own defense, particularly cutting obsolete Cold War weapons systems, have fallen far short of his original vision, analysts say.