One of the primary talking points in Rumsfeld's defense has been that
"out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round". However, as the dissemination continues of revelations about Pentagon
resource-shifting from the needs of combat troops to
expensive and
unreliable new weapons systems, new polling evidence indicates that the recognition of Donald Rumsfeld's incompetence runs deep in our armed forces.
The Army Times runs an unscientific web poll on its front page.
This weeks's poll question is
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under fire in recent weeks from a variety of retired generals, who say he should resign for his performance in managing the war in Iraq. Do you think the U.S. war effort is grounds for Secretary Rumsfleld to resign?
Results with 1979 responses:
Yes: 64.73 % (1,281)
No: 32.09 % (635)
No Opinion: 3.18 % (63)
Now that this freepable poll is being publicized, the results may change; but the numbers have been running pretty consistent all week, suggesting that it reflects the opinion of regular readers of the Army Times, mostly current military with the rank of of non-comm and above.
This would be consistent with comments earlier this week from John Murtha and Tim Russert earlier this week that our military forces are in quiet revolt against Rumsfeld's mismanagement.