"Capt. JG" wrote ...
Well, he might not have done the right thing as far as thinking goes, but
his instincts were good. What would you have done...

Instincts of a cowboy are not good qualities for a Secretary of Defense. I
would have stayed in my office or gone to the command center, as appropriate, to
best do MY job of gathering data and making command decisions in a situation
that could have been the prelude to WW-3. The firemen are better trained to do
their job than I (or Rummy) so I would have done mine rather than interfere with
theirs'.

Rummy's "instincts" are the reason we are in trouble in Iraq. Leaving the
question of whether we should have attacked Saddam aside, once the decision was
made to seek a military solution to the perceived problem then the experts in
applying those solutions - the senior military officers - should have been left
alone to get the job done. But no! Rummy, an amateur, had to micromanage them
just like he did the firemen - just like McNamara did in Vietnam. So guess
what, one of the kids from my county got blown up over there - not in combat but
in the mess hall - by a gawdam bomb the guys who whipped Saddam had to leave
unguarded. Him and 2000 more ....... And the reason all those explosives had to
be left unguarded is that Rummy didn't listen to the generals but instead
followed his amateur instincts.