Military Publications Monday Will Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation

Four publications of the Military Times Media Group plan to call on U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign - The Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times will issue the call in an editorial scheduled to run Monday.

The editorial, released to NBC News on Friday ahead of its Monday publication date, stated, "It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads."

The editorial will appear just one day before the midterm election, in which GOP candidates have been losing ground, according to recent polls.

The newspapers are part of the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of the Gannett Co., Inc. The publications are sold to service members and their families.

Democrats and Republicans alike have called for Rumsfeld's resignation, arguing he has mishandled the war in Iraq, where more than 2,800 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Cheney has faced sharp criticism for his hard-line views and is viewed favorably by only about a third of Americans in polls. Bush said that "both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them."

The editorial was posted Saturday on the Web sites of the four publications: Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and the Marine Corps Times.


Read the editorial - Army Times

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Bush stands on bodies of the troops ridiculing Senator while relevance of more significant Iraq news demands Commander in Chief attention

see the chart and read more at New York Times

Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq

By Michael R. Gordon
Published: November 1, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

(note; per the chart, guestimate how long before it reaches the red zone chaos indicator on the graph bar - days, weeks? How many U.S. troops killed in Iraq in October 2006 alone - over 100 and how many thousands more Iraqis killed in the same month?)

Also note the interesting observation by Andrew Sullivan

While the media is obsessed parsing the ad libs of someone on no ballot this fall, something truly ominous has just happened in Iraq. The commander-in-chief has abandoned an American soldier to the tender mercies of a Shiite militia. Yes, there are nuances here, and the NYT fleshes out the story today. But the essential fact is clear. In a showdown for control of Baghdad, the Iraqi prime minister took orders from Moqtada al-Sadr, and instructed the U.S. military to withdraw from Sadr City. The American forces were trying both to stabilize the city but also to find a missing American serviceman. He is still missing.

And see where Washington Post reports on how US Air Force has to beg for more money to bring home wounded troops.

Air Force said to seek $50 Billion emergency funds

By Andrea Shalal-Esa
Reuters
Tuesday, October 31, 2006; 2:50 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is asking the Pentagon's leadership for a staggering $50 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2007 -- an amount equal to nearly half its annual budget, defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said on Tuesday.

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