Updated 12:30 p.m.
Rumsfeld quits after Bush is rebuked on Iraq
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WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned Wednesday after voters delivered the Bush administration a stinging rebuke on its handling of the Iraq war in Tuesday's midterm elections.
Bush said he will nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates, now president of Texas A&M University, to replace Rumsfeld. That will require Senate confirmation.
"Donald Rumsfeld is a trusted adviser and friend," Bush said in a Wednesday post-election news conference.
Without going into specifics, Bush said he remains steadfast in his plan for victory in Iraq, although he will "continue to adjust to achieve the objective."
"I'm committed to victory," Bush said.
Bush said he has been talking with Rumsfeld and Gates for several days before the elections about the changes but held the announcement until after the polls had closed.
"I didn't want to interject a major decision in the final days of the campaign," Bush said.
Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and could take the Senate after one close race is decided.
Rumsfeld came to the Pentagon for the second time as secretary in 2001 with a single mission: dismantle the armor-heavy Cold War force and prepare for rapid-strike modern warfare. He served as defense secretary 1975-77 under President Ford.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he became an aggressive force in the war against terrorism, advocating for the kind of lighter, faster fighting force that initially crushed the Iraqi army but was unable to contain the chaos that followed.
His insistence on keeping U.S. troop levels in Iraq at between 135,000 and 145,000 despite calls by some generals for almost twice that put him at odds with respected military thinkers such as former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, who authored the doctrine of overwhelming force.
Initially considered by Bush to head the CIA, Rumsfeld was tapped for the Pentagon because he had the management style needed to undertake a massive restructuring.
Aside from a stint as a Navy pilot, Rumsfeld has spent his entire professional life fighting conformity by upending organizations.
As a young congressman in the 1960s, he ruffled feathers by openly bucking party leadership.
Hired for his chutzpah by then-President Nixon, he reorganized the Office of Economic Opportunity by slashing jobs and refocusing the bureaucracy. In private industry, at G.D. Searle and Co., a biotech company, he fired hundreds of executives.
"Rumsfeld was brought to the Pentagon to be an assertive, powerful, aggressive leader," said James Mann, author of the acclaimed book on Bush's war cabinet, "Rise of the Vulcans."
He has done so without apologies.
As he sought to make the Army leaner and meaner under transformation, Rumsfeld skipped over active-duty generals and coaxed from retirement Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a career special operations soldier, to be Army chief of staff.
"The idea of bringing a retired person out of retirement to serve as chief of staff of the Army was stunning and a lot of people didn't like it," Rumsfeld said several months ago in defense of his transformation of the military. "The fact that he was a Special Forces officer, a joint officer, added to the attitudes."
Said Mann, "(Rumsfeld) has never been timid about challenging conventional wisdom. But sometimes conventional wisdom turns out to be right."
Just a reminder folks,the Middle East will always be the way it is today as it was 1000 years ago.
You can't change everything, but it its OK to try. Pick the battles you can win, take chances with the lowest in collateral, if you know when to say "enough is enough", you minimized the harm.
The Repubs actually "over" supported Bush, they should have kept themselves and him in check and we would have been fine.
Rusmfeld should be put on trial.
Rummy is resigning! God bless America!