Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq - the troops seem to like him, and so do I

Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq :
"'There's no doubt in my mind, this is achievable,' he told troops in Mosul just three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here.
"'When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't be done, and that we're in a quagmire here,' one should recall that there have been such doubters 'throughout every conflict in the history of the world,' he told about 200 soldiers of the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander's headquarters."

I saw the tapes of the SecDef's whistlestop tour of Iraq on Fox News Channel as they were released. Rummy was in fine form. Witty when possible, serious when needed, always upbeat and confident.

Bush should keep Rumsfeld on the job for years to come, and not just for his handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which, despite some glitches, have gone reasonably well. For all the complaining one hears, and the very serious challenges posed by the ongoing revolt against the interim Iraqi government, we have made some signal achievements. Iraqi civilians are using the hotline to turn in terrorists, hospitals and schools are functioning, electricity is being restored, plans have been made to build water and sewer systems better than they were before the war.

But the other essential function which this SecDef is handling with considerable skill and persistence is the transformation of the armed forces for 21st century warfare. The heavy armor and artillery model of warfare which dominated from WW2 through the Cold War had been recognized as obsolete for some time. The 1991 US campaign against Iraq may well have been the world's last great tank battle involving a major power. The main battle tank and massed heavy artillery was well-suited to the static defense of the Fulda Gap, but that battle never came. The only place left in the world where such a thing might be seen again would be a new inter-Korean war.

The new model is not static defense, as dictated by the Cold War policy of containment, but the projection of significant force to take and hold ground anywhere in the world on short notice. The recent campaigns against Iraq (1991 and 2003) were somewhat unusual in that a total control of the air and major airfields in close proximity to the assembly areas made it possible to assemble significant heavy forces including main battle tanks literally under the nose of the enemy. This is not a scenario that will often be repeated. The Abrams tank can only be lifted by our largest Air Force cargo plane and only one at a time. These planes are so expensive and in such short supply that the Air Force cannot allow them to be operated in close proximity to hostile fire.

During the previous administration, the emphasis had been on air power to such a degree that the question of how to put boots on the ground in the face of hostile fire was not high on the DOD's list of priorities. Rumsfeld and his team have made this issue a top priority. I don't necessarily agree with every move they have made, but at least they are working on it. Cancellation of the Crusader artillery system was probably the right decision. Adopting the Stryker vehicle was, in my view, a mistake - but it is in service now and we will see how it works out. Placing the forward support companies under the commanders of the combat units they support makes good sense, although it causes difficulties for the congressional restriction on women in combat to co-locate these units which include women with the combatant units they support.

To replace Rumsfeld and his team now might appear to offer a chance to placate some of the president's critics about the handling of the current war, but I suspect the criticism would go on unabated. In fact, sacking Rumsfeld might be spun as an admission of even greater errors by the administration and aggravate its PR problems. The only certain outcome of Rumsfeld's removal would be to seriously set back the timetable on transformation while a new team came in and got up to speed on the complex issues involved.