WASHINGTON — Even as a procession of retired generals engages in a public debate on whether Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should resign for his handling of the Iraq war, critics and defenders appear to agree on one important point: The war is not going as well as any of them had anticipated.
In interviews, writings and public appearances, even many of Rumsfeld's ardent military defenders have acknowledged that the failure to predict the virulence of the insurgency and to aggressively impose order in Iraq was a mistake that could be difficult to repair.
With U.S. military casualties again on the rise and public opinion turning against the war, such consensus is perhaps unsurprising. But for an administration whose political health is tied to its management of the conflict, and which has repeatedly insisted the war is going better than is generally portrayed, such pessimism from those so close to Iraq policy could make the job of regaining public support all the more difficult.
"Everyone is assuming and agreeing we botched this," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution who has been critical of the retired generals' speaking out against Rumsfeld. "We're all agreeing this is not going to go down as one of the nation's great accomplishments. It's bad for [the Bush administration's] place in history" and for Republican electoral prospects in November, he added.
There are notable exceptions to the consensus on Iraq. Neither retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the invasion, nor retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the former head of U.S. Central Command and the war plan's primary architect, acknowledged mistakes during television interviews over the weekend.
But several other former military leaders, including members of the Joint Chiefs during the war and a senior general who served as Franks' deputy, have acknowledged that the plans for rebuilding and stabilizing Iraq were flawed, in some cases severely.
"We all agree there were mistakes made," retired Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff during the Iraq war, said in a recent interview. "Things happened we didn't anticipate.... We share in that responsibility."
Retired Gen. John Keane, who was vice chief of staff of the Army during Iraq war planning and who has been outspoken in supporting Rumsfeld, said that although he believes the invasion plan proved successful, the postwar plan should have included many more military engineers, translators and intelligence experts.
