Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [246]
It is undoubtedly too late to correct the literally hundreds of misstatements that were repeated in what Jamie McIntyre, the Pentagon reporter for CNN, described as a media-generated myth elevated to “the level of Scripture.”31
General Shinseki appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003, before the war started. During his testimony, he was asked a question by Senator Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army’s force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?
SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders’ exact requirements. But I think ...
LEVIN: How about a range?
SHINSEKI: I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point—something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We’re talking about posthostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground-force presence ...32
It remains a mystery why Levin would decide it was in our country’s interest to publicize in an open hearing Franks’ planned number of troops four weeks before the war began, but it was not Levin’s unusual question that received attention. Shinseki’s response began a media firestorm that sought to pit what some journalists and war critics characterized as his lone, courageous voice against an administration bent on war.
Reflecting on his actual comments, what Shinseki said was unremarkable. He noted that the forces mobilized in the region to that point were probably enough. He also said he deferred to the combatant commander, General Franks, for the exact requirements. When asked by journalists about Shinseki’s comment, I should have known better than to respond to a quote that I had not heard myself, but I took the bait. So did Paul Wolfowitz, who characterized Shinseki’s answer as “wildly off the mark.” We were focused on avoiding any signals to the enemy about how many troops Franks had in mind. Bush’s political opponents inflated Shinseki’s comments into a grand confrontation with the administration he served, though, in fact, there was no clash at all.
It was later claimed that, in retaliation for Shinseki’s comment, I authorized a leak of the name of his supposed replacement, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Jack Keane, a year before Shinseki was slated to retire. I did not talk to the press about Shinseki’s successor, nor did I ask anyone else to do so. Neither the President nor I had decided on Shinseki’s replacement. Furthermore, when the dust settled it was not Keane at all but General Pete Schoomaker, and only after Shinseki had completed every day of his full four-year term as chief of staff and retired with full honors.
Shinseki was not dismissed early or otherwise rushed out the door. Yet literally hundreds of news reports in the press and on television falsely declared that General Shinseki was fired for insubordination and “shunted aside.”33 Critics of the administration explained Shinseki’s silence during the war—he declined to respond to press requests or correct the record—as the result of the alleged shunning he supposedly had suffered at the hands of senior Department officials. This hardened into a myth that he was punished for telling the truth about the war. Its promoters cite as evidence that I did not attend Shinseki’s retirement ceremony. The truth is that Shinseki did not invite me, despite the fact that several senior officers urged him to do so.
As Shinseki was departing in June 2003, he addressed the controversy that journalists had inflated into a major crisis in civilian-military relations in a private end-of-tour memorandum. “During the February testimony, I didn’t believe there was a ‘right’ answer on the number of forces required to stabilize Iraq,” he wrote. Shinseki