[Peace-discuss] on disloyalty

[Ricky Baldwin]

Army's top leaders, Rumsfeld lock horns -- again

Dave Moniz USA TODAY, Fri. March 14, 2003 

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of a potential U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq, the Army's top two leaders and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have intensified
a long-running feud that underscores a bitter rift
between the military's largest branch and the
Pentagon's civilian boss. 

Amid rumors that Rumsfeld considered firing him last
week, Army Secretary Tom White's office took the
unusual step Thursday of issuing a statement declaring
White's ''public, private and personal respect'' for
Rumsfeld.

White's office issued the statement after media
reports that Rumsfeld was angry that White had failed
to rebuke the Army's chief of staff -- Gen. Eric
Shinseki -- for insisting it could take ''several
hundred thousand'' U.S. troops to occupy postwar Iraq.
Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
both attacked Shinseki's estimate as inflated.

But White refused to rein in Shinseki. Instead, he
defended Shinseki's credentials before the Senate
Armed Services Committee and said either Shinseki's
estimate or a smaller one might be correct.
In a column Thursday, political commentator Robert
Novak said Rumsfeld felt White was disloyal and came
close to firing him for not repudiating Shinseki's
estimates. Pentagon officials declined to respond to
requests for comment.

The continued animosity between Rumsfeld and the
Army's top leaders threatens to dampen morale and
further expose rifts between the Defense secretary and
some senior military advisers.

Critics have charged that the Bush administration is
downplaying war costs and the number of troops
required to occupy Iraq. The Army is providing the
bulk of U.S. forces and will be called upon for much
of the peacekeeping.

Officially, the Pentagon has estimated that 45,000 to
65,000 U.S. troops will be required to occupy Iraq.
White's statement, which said ''we should rally around
leaders entrusted by the Constitution'' when the
nation is on the verge of war, ''is a sign of how icy
things have become,'' says Andrew Krepinevich, a
retired Army officer and national security analyst for
the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Rumsfeld has been at odds with White and Shinseki over
the direction of Army policy for at least a year.
Michael O'Hanlon, a national security expert at the
Brookings Institution, says the feud ''is a bigger
deal and more systemic than most outsiders realize.''
The size of the Iraqi occupation force is crucial.
With 480,000 active duty soldiers, the Army is already
stretched thin by the buildup for war that could
require a total commitment of 380,000 U.S. troops from
all the services. If a large force is needed to
stabilize Iraq, it will drive up the cost of the
invasion and possibly limit the Army's availability
for other duties.

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