Eaton speaks

March 20, 2006

Retired Army Major General Paul D. Eaton may not have a household name, but as the military official in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, he has an important perspective on the war and the Bush administration.

And at this point, Eaton’s not impressed. In a New York Times op-ed, for example, he described Rumsfeld as “not competent to lead our armed forces.”

In sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.

In the five years Mr. Rumsfeld has presided over the Pentagon, I have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of the senior leadership. […]

Mr. Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his cold warrior’s view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower.

It’s interesting how retired military leaders keep coming forward to criticize Rumsfeld and the Bush administration just as soon as they can’t be punished for speaking out. It makes one suspect that many of these same leaders would be inclined to say the same things while on active duty if they thought they could get away with it.

In fact, Eaton hinted at just such a fact, urging Congress to “call our generals, colonels, captains and sergeants to testify frequently, so that their opinions and needs are known to the men they lead.”

One gets the sense that Eaton, who saw the results of Bush’s Iraq policies first hand, is fed up — and finds retirement liberating. Good for him; his message is one that deserves to be heard.

“one suspect that many of these same leaders would be inclined to say the same things while on active duty”

They were/are — to John Murtha, and hopefully to others.

  • I’ve lost track of the many in between, but just between Shinseki and Eaton (and Powell, who sold his soul in a case of misplaced loyalty, but still had fairly known views in support of maintaining the “Powell Doctrine”), they have how many stars on their shoulder? (at least nine – 4 for Powell, 4 for Shinseki, and Eaton has at least one as a General and as a major general probably 3)

    And lets see, how many does the Chicken Hawk brain trust have – Cheney, Wolfie, Perle, Rummy?

    Still waiting. . .

    What kind of President, exactly, would listen to the former over the latter?
    That’s correct: the Worst. President. Ever.

  • Er, wouldn’t listen to the former over the latter. Again, preview is our friend.

  • Rumsfeld is McNamara, there is no argument. Treating war like it can be run like a business, or simply won with super-high-speed technology.

    Of course, McNamara didn’t put nearly as much of an emphasis on privatizing war that Rumsfeld tries to do.

  • I again point folks to Van Riper’s 2004 interview with PBS:
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/interviews/vanriper.html

    I know [Deputy Secretary of Defense] Paul Wolfowitz was angry and upset. Were you aware that that kind of dynamic was happening?

    I was not aware of things that Richard Perle had been doing and that Mr. Wolfowitz had been doing at the time. But sitting now here in 2004, I take great umbrage at what they were doing. Here’s a group with no military experience. And then you add on top of that, you actively avoided service in period of war, Vietnam, as the gentlemen are alleged to do? I take great umbrage that they would have anything to say about the military policies of this country.

  • Thanks Gridlock,
    Any bets on Rummy being gone by the end of the month?

    When you lose the military leadership, that’s it. I’m sure the generals aren’t the exception to the rule here. They wouldn’t being saying this stuff, as well as Murtha and Joe Galloway at Knight Ridder, if a good chunk of the military didn’t feel share the same feeling.

  • “Eaton has at least one as a General and as a major general probably 3”

    Major General is 2 stars, Lieutant General is 3, Full General is 4, General of the Armies is 5

    Brigader General is 1.

    Don’t ask me why. It just worked out that way over time. First there were Generals (who lead armies) and Captains (who lead companies), then they decided to add some ranks in between. So they decided that the assistant office for a Captain would be his Lieutant and the subordinate to a General would be a Lieutant General. And so on.

    George Washington was only a Lieutant General, by the way. Eisenhower was a General of the Armies.

  • Let’s not make too much of Eaton’s comments. We don’t know his political orientation. He could be enabling the White House to turn Rumsfeld into sacrificial lamb and take the heat off of Bush and neo-con bumblers (Feith, Wolfowitz, Kristol et al) for the disaster known as the Iraq War.

  • Shock and awe was doomed from the beginning. A quick blast of technology and it was supposed to be over.
    Rummy displayed no understanding of historic islamic conflict with the west that has raged for centuries., when he thinks in days, his opponents think in centuries.

  • Let’s not make too much of Eaton’s comments. We don’t know his political orientation.

    That’s exactly what makes his Op-Ed so powerful. Even the right doesn’t know if he is a partisan. Which means they have to look at his other credential: his career in the military. We need more credible military figures (retired or not) making it clear that the W administration is incompetent. General Eaton’s Op-Ed assists us in that endeavor.

  • Rumsfeld’s complaint that “Afghanistan doesn’t have any good targets” demonstrated his unfitness on Sept. 12. Terrorists, almost by definition, don’t have good targets. Now the terrorists are in Iraq and they still don’t have any good targets.

    And he doesn’t even seem interested in training the Iraq army that we are waiting on to stand up.

  • I should correct myself. I’m sure Rummy is interested in training the Iraqi army, he’s just doing a really shitty job of it.

  • PPS- I do recognize the irony of saying Rummy sucks at training Iraqis under a post about Eaton. But Eaton was in that position for 1 year, Rummy’s been in charge for 3 years, and Rummy runs the show. As Eaton pointed out “contracts we made for purchasing military equipment for the new Iraqi Army were rewritten back in Washington”, etc.

  • Edo,
    I was only suggesting caution–because the Iraq fiasco should be hung like albatross around the the necks of the neo-conservatives.

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