Rumsfeld Under Fire

Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.

"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a forum conducted by Senate Democrats.

A second military leader, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ...."

"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," he added at the policy forum, held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections in which the war is a central issue.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the Democratic-sponsored event as "an election-year smokescreen aimed at obscuring the Democrats' dismal record on national security."

"Today's stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. He called Rumsfeld an "excellent secretary of defense."

The conflict, now in its fourth year, has claimed the lives of more than 2,600 American troops and cost more than $300 billion.

Monday's forum comes amid an uproar over a government-produced National Intelligence Estimate which became public over the weekend that concludes the war in Iraq has significantly increased the terror threat.

The report, which has been confirmed by CBS News, says senior U.S. intelligence analysts across the board agree that the war in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism, rather than diminishing it.

Separately, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the Army chief of staff warned Rumsfeld that without a huge budget increase the service would have to reduce troop levels in Iraq and elsewhere.

In an extraordinary move, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, withheld a 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Rumsfeld that the Army needed billions in additional funding.

"This is unusual, but hell, we're in unusual times," the Times quotes a senior Pentagon official as saying.

And in another sign that the Army can no longer keep up with the increased troop demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that a brigade of the 1st Armored Division – about 3,800 troops – is having its one-year tour of duty extended by 45 to 60 days. That will allow the 3rd Infantry Division to have a full year at home before going back to Iraq.

Last month, another brigade was extended past its one-year tour, and in order to get that brigade home by Christmas a brigade from the 1st Cavalry Division is having its deployment date moved up by a month. That will mean the brigade was home for just 14 months. The Army's goal is to have two years at home for every year overseas, but right now it's going in exactly the opposite direction.

Rumsfeld told reporters Monday that "some units" are being sent to Iraq ahead of schedule, although he offered no details. Rumsfeld declined to discuss the case of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored, saying that as a general matter some units, "from time to time," are extended in Iraq.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., told reporters last week that he hoped the hearing would shed light on the planning and conduct of the war. He said majority Republicans had failed to conduct hearings on the issue, adding, "if they won't ... we will."

Several members of the Senate Democratic leadership were expected to participate in the hearing. Dorgan said Republican lawmakers had been invited.

It is unusual for retired military officers to criticize the Pentagon while military operations are under way, particularly at a public event likely to draw widespread media attention.

But Batiste, Eaton and retired Col. Paul X. Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq, and Batiste also was senior military assistant to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

Batiste, who commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, also blamed Congress for failing to ask "the tough questions."

He said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.

Batiste said if full consideration had been given to the requirements for war, it's likely the U.S. would have kept its focus on Afghanistan, "not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents."

Hammes said that not providing the best equipment was a "serious moral failure on the part of our leadership."

The United States "did not ask our soldiers to invade France in 1944 with the same armor they trained on in 1941. Why are we asking our soldiers and Marines to use the same armor we found was insufficient in 2003," he asked.

Hammes was responsible for establishing bases for the Iraqi armed forces. He served in Iraq in 2004 and is now Marine Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, National Defense University.

Eaton was responsible for training the Iraqi military and later for rebuilding the Iraqi police force.

He said planning for the postwar period was "amateurish at best, incompetent a better descriptor."

Public opinion polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq, but division about how quickly to withdraw U.S. troops. Democrats hope to tap into the anger in November, without being damaged by Republican charges they favor a policy of "cut and run."

By coincidence, the hearing came a day after public disclosure of the National Intelligence Estimate. The report was completed in April and represented a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, according to an intelligence official.

"From what I have heard," the report "is exactly what we told the Bush administration before the war in Iraq. It's obvious," said CBS News terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer, formerly with the CIA.

"You can have unintended consequences but you shouldn't have unexpected consequences. What we are seeing now around the Islamic world is exactly what the CIA expected before the war began," Scheuer said.