Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation

How's that for a headline? This is from The Washington Post:

Three retired military officers who served in Iraq called today for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H.Rumsfeld , telling a Democratic "oversight hearing" on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon chief bungled planning for the U.S. invasion, dismissed the prospect of an insurgency and sent American troops into the fray with inadequate equipment.

The testimony by the three --two retired Army major generals and a former Marine colonel -- came a day after disclosure of a classified intelligence assessment that concluded the war in Iraq has fueled recruitment of violent Islamic extremists, helping to create a new generation of potential terrorists around the world and worsening the U.S. position.

In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."

Joining his call for Rumsfeld to resign were retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was responsible for training Iraq's military and police in 2003 and 2004, and retired Marine Col. Thomas X.Hammes, who served in Iraq in 2004 and helped establish bases for the reconstituted Iraqi armed forces.

It is amazing how we now have these three retired generals giving testimony to a Democratic committee hearing just one day after The New York Times published a National Intelligence Estimate report saying that the Iraq war has actually increased Islamic radicalism and the overall threat of terrorist attacks since the September 11th attacks. Both the NIE report and the generals' testimony are just two more examples of the Bush administration's complete failures in not just fighting against terrorism, but also how their war in Iraq has made America even less safe than before September 11th.

And this stuff is coming out just one month before the midterm elections.