Bush reinterates support for embattled defense secretary

WASHINGTON – The White House said Thursday that President Bush has confidence in Donald H. Rumsfeld as more retired military officers called for the defense secretary to step down.

“The president believes that Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation’s history,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

But the public expression of support didn’t dampen what appeared to be a rising controversy and political headache for the Bush administration, as a fifth and sixth retired general came forward to demand that Rumsfeld resign.

In an interview broadcast on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs said Rumsfeld created an “atmosphere of arrogance” at the Pentagon in which military advice on Afghanistan and Iraq was ignored or discounted.

As a result, Rumsfeld and his deputies miscalculated badly when it came to planning for how Iraq would be secured after Saddam Hussein’s ouster, Riggs said. “We just grossly underestimated the numbers of soldiers we would need,” said Riggs, who spent 39 years in uniform, rose from private to lieutenant general and won a Distinguished Flying Cross in Vietnam.

Riggs was forced to retire in 2004 minus one star after he gave an interview in which he said the Army had been stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq and needed thousands more troops.

Retired Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr. told CNN on Thursday that he also thinks Rumsfeld should make way for new leadership. Swannack, who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, told CNN that Rumsfeld “carries way too much baggage with him.”

Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong, who served as deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command from 2000 to 2003 and had a chief role in planning the Iraq invasion, defended Rumsfeld on CNN on Thursday.

“Dealing with Rumsfeld is like dealing with a CEO,” DeLong said. “When you walk into him, you’ve got to be prepared; you’ve got to know what you’re talking about. If you don’t, you’re summarily dismissed. But that’s the way it is, and he’s effective.”

But retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, who served as the top military officer in the Middle East, kept up the pressure Thursday for Rumsfeld to step aside. Zinni first called for the defense secretary’s ouster April 2.

Speaking on CNN, Zinni said Rumsfeld should be held accountable for a series of blunders in Iraq, including “throwing out 10 years’ worth of planning” for a postwar occupation after Saddam’s removal.