Retired Air Force General Richard B. Myers, who was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 until fall of 2005, is dismissive of those retired generals who said they were intimidated by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and thus prevented from voicing their true opinions.
"We gave him our best military advice and I think that's what we're obligated to do," Myers said on ABC's "This Week." "If we don't do that, we should be shot."
Take that, generals!
"You'd have to believe that everybody in the chain of command is intimidated, and I don't believe that," Myers said. He added that Rumsfeld allowed "tremendous access" for presenting arguments.
"In our system, when it's all said and done ... the civilians make the decisions," he said. "And we live by those decisions."
An undated unsigned Pentagon memo that reiterated information given orally to reporters on Friday, said that senior military leaders "are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process". According to the memo Rumsfeld had met 139 times with members of the joint chiefs and 208 times with combat commanders in the past year.
You have to wonder how those critics got to be generals if they could be intimidated into silence. That's not the sort of thing that presents a picture of stalwart leadership.
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