Neocons Want Rumsfield Sacked

The Sunday Times reports that a growing chorus of neo-conservative commentators want Rumsfield sacked and replaced with someone with wider appeal. The loudest voice to date has been William Kristol, the neoconservative editor of The Weekly Standard magazine and Chairman of the influential Project for the New American Century. The latter body, the PNAC, has been accused of being a true conspiracy behind the policies of the Bush administration.

“What remains to be done is to announce new leadership for the department of defence,” Kristol wrote in his Thanksgiving message for the Weekly Standard. “This, surely, would be an important opportunity for a strong, Bush-doctrine-supporting outsider, someone who of course would be a team player, but someone who could also work with the military and broaden support for the president’s policy.”

The Sunday Times reports retired military man and neocon media figure Ralph Peters as saying:

"“I am allergic to Rumsfeld...We did a great thing in Iraq, but we did it very badly. He is an extremely talented man but he has the tragic flaw of hubris. His arrogance is unbearable. My friends in uniform just hate him.”

and explains why the long knives are out for Rummie:

"The calls for Rumsfeld to be dismissed have intensified since the departure was announced of his cabinet rival, Colin Powell, the secretary of state. With the liberal-leaning Powell being the first to go, conservatives no longer see the need to hold back their opinions.

The defence secretary’s job security has not been enhanced by allegations that he lobbied to scupper the intelligence bill in Congress last week against President George W Bush’s wishes. Rumsfeld made little secret of his opposition to the bill’s plan for the national intelligence director to be given sweeping powers over the $40 billion intelligence budget, 80% of which is currently controlled by the Pentagon."

The Sunday Times says that the favoured replacement amongst neo-con pundits is Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another founder member of PNAC. Wolfowitz is reputed to be behind the Office of Special Plans, an intelligence committee set up at the Pentagon which reportedly was behind much of the overly hawkish intelligence which was used to justify the war in Iraq.

Yet Rumsfield is one of the original signatories to the Statement of Principles that founded the PNAC, along with the likes of Kristal, Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush. Is this simply a falling out amongst the neo-con hawks who believe in the U.S. as a new Roman Empire and in a Pax Americana at gunpoint? The cynic in me says wait and see. Maybe Rumsfield is being groomed for something else and they feel the need to get him out of the firing line over the war and the economic debacle that the Bush second term is shaping up to be.