Military Publications say Rumsfeld must go: Rummy, you're not doin' a heck of a job

Obviously I can't answer for everybody but here is the way I see it. Bush is generally not a particularly bad guy but is pretty much out of his depth as President. One of Bush's good traits is that he understands that he can't micromanage everything. He operates by delegating authority to people he trusts.

In the case of Iraq, the case was made to him, probably by Cheney and Rumsfeld, that a war was necessary. Because he has chosen these people as his advisers, he trusted their opinions and delegated all authority of the running of the war to them.

The actual issues regarding the conduct of the war all fall on Rumsfeld, who had carte blanche to 'run the war'. As such he is responsible for all of the strategic mistakes, such as sending too few troops, and actively failing to prepare for a scenario that didn’t involve Iraqis acting in a civil and helpful manner and embracing the US Army as a way to thank us for getting rid of Saddam. Whether the basic decision to go to war was good or bad, the actual conduct of the war has been severely screwed up by Rumsfeld.

Bush, as I see it, is to be faulted for pushing away anybody whose opinions were not in line with his core advisers, and for sticking with said core advisers after it became clear that the direction that things were going was not positive, but these seem like minor sins and actually reflect something that could be mistaken for virtue compared to the total screw up that Rumsfeld created as a result of his narcissistic belief that he could run the war better than all the Joint Chief's of Staff combined.

Rumsfeld is guilty of dangerous hubris. If the man had any kind of humility and accepted that his generals might have had some experience that made their opinions useful we would be much better off. Bush's problem is his inability to adapt to changing situations, but I at least give him credit for trying his best when he is probably overmatched for the job.

 

While the ultimate responsinility rests with the President, I think you can blame Rumsfeld for the mismanagement. He was the filter through which GWB was getting his information and he appointed and oversaw Bremer. Once the war was started the two biggest mistakes were disbanding the army and civilian infrastructure and the lack of an adequate force on the ground.
The generals, Gen. Shinseki in particular were calling for 300,000 men but the message the President got was that we had enough troops.

He should have listened to Jack Ryan, who always presents the the unglossed truth

If there is one lesson from Iraq and Viet Nam it is (as ottoman says) hubris yields big mistakes. McNamara is the same guy as Rumsfeld. I'm all for civilian oversight of the military but when it comes to the decisions about the actual fighting, I'd rather have a guy who has seen the blood and guts and knows what's at stake for the soldiers calling the shots.