[Mb-civic] Guardian Unlimited: Call goes out for top brass to back Rumsfeld

[harry.sifton at sympatico.ca]

HS spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

Call goes out for top brass to back Rumsfeld
Oliver Burkeman in New York
Monday April 17 2006
The Guardian


The Bush administration's attempts to rebut criticism of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped up a gear yesterday with the publication of a Pentagon memo seeking to persuade former military commanders to back him.

The one-page memo, emailed on Friday to a large group of retired officers and civilian experts, took the unusual step of enumerating the Pentagon chief's recent meetings in order to prove "US senior military leaders are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process in the department of defence".

It also sought to play down the importance of the seven ex-generals who have called for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation, noting there are 8,000 current and former US generals alive.

The secretary had had 139 meetings with the joint chiefs of staff since 2005, the memo said, along with 208 meetings with other senior field commanders. The Pentagon called the document a "fact sheet", and denied trying to recruit other retired personnel to the defence secretary's cause.

Mr Rumsfeld's position became more tenuous after six retired generals called for him to quit, followed by the revelation he was "personally involved" in "degrading and abusive" treatment of a Guantánamo Bay detainee, according to an internal military inquiry. On Saturday General Wesley Clark became the seventh ex-commander calling for him to go.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited