The former defense secretary was reluctant to endorse Bush's assessment that the decision to draw down US troops shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq was "the most important failure in the execution of the war."
"I don't have enough confidence to say that that's right. I think that it's possible," Rumsfeld told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.
"We had (an) enormous number of troops ready to go in. They had -- we had off-ramps, if they weren't needed.
"It's hard to know. You know, the path you didn't take is always smoother," he added.
In case you don't remember what happened to GEN Shinseki let's let Joey Galloway remind you.
Shinseki answered that, based on his experience as the first commander in Bosnia, that it might take "several hundred thousand soldiers" to occupy Iraq with its 25 million people.
One military commander told me that on that day, when Shinseki said what he said, the plan called for 280,000 American troops to carry out the invasion and the follow-up occupation. The next day that force was reduced by 60,000 troops. Later the occupation force would be much smaller, well below 200,000. Well below 150,000 in fact.
The civilians would prove Ric Shinseki wrong no matter what it cost, and they would do everything in their power to punish him and everyone who liked him and supported him. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, publicly rebuked Shinseki, saying his estimate was "wildly off the mark." They also made him a lame duck by leaking the name of his proposed successor more than a year before he was to retire.
When Army Secretary Tom White spoke up on behalf of Shinseki, he was fired.
By: Brant
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