WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years as Secretary of Defense, Republican officials said Wednesday.
This is a huge story here. Talk about the second big casualty in the Bush administration--the first being the president's destroyed political mandate by yesterday's election-day blowout by the Democrats. President Bush and the Republican Party campaigned on a "stay the course" theme. The president was never going to change anything in his Iraq policy. President Bush had no intention of replacing Rumsfeld. Bush even stated that Rumsfeld would stay on as Defense Secretary on until 2008. Had the Republicans maintained control of Congress, you can bet that Rumsfeld would still have a cabinet job.
Everything changed after the Democrats smashed the Republican control of the House by picking up 28 Republican seats in the House and four seats in the Senate (with the senate races in Montana and Virginia still too close to call). This midterm election was about the Bush administration's war in Iraq. CNN reports:
According to CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider, voters were angry and wanted change -- and the old adage that all politics is local did not apply this year.
Schneider said as he interviewed voters across the country, "a lot of voters said, 'I'm going to vote Democratic.' They didn't even know the name of the Democrat, but they said, 'I'm going to vote Democratic because I don't like Bush, I don't like the war, I want to make a statement.'"
According to exit polls, 57 percent of all voters disapprove of the war in Iraq and 58 percent disapprove of Bush's job performance.
Most voters cast their ballots on national rather than local issues, with 60 percent saying national issues mattered most to their vote, while 34 percent said local issues mattered most.
Independents, who make up 26 percent of the national electorate, were the swing constituency. They voted for Democrats by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin.
"We haven't seen that big a vote for one party among independents since exit polling began about 30 years ago," said Schneider.
Forget the Republican spin that the election was really about individual races--this election was a referendum on President Bush's war in Iraq. Rumsfeld was a key figure in the planning of the invasion of Iraq by using a small number of troops with superior firepower. His invasion plan worked. However Rumsfeld failed to plan for the American occupation of Iraq, reconstruction, and the worst-case scenario of an Iraqi home-grown insurgency. While Rumsfeld's invasion plan worked, he did not have enough American troops in Iraq to both maintain order, and to guard the numerous Iraqi weapons depots. It is these failures that have brought us into this disaster. Now with the Democrats in control of the House, you can bet that there were going to be House investigations, with subpoena powers, into the Bush administration's role into the marketing of the invasion of Iraq, and the post-reconstruction and occupation of Iraq. Rumsfeld would be on an even hotter seat than he has been for the past four years. Keeping Rumsfeld on until 2008 with a Democratic-controlled House, and possible Democratic-controlled Senate, became a liability for the Bush White House.
Thus, Rumsfeld had to go.
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