It' a waste of time replying to partisan propagandists, but for those few who will benefit from an explanation here it is.

Rumsfeld has been hated by the JCOS since day one. He cancelled useless programs that paid contractor kickbacks to the Generals and folks feeding on the public/military trough.

They wanted to go in to Iraq with huge numbers of men, huge supply lines and the reality is we'd be at 7,000 plus casualties just by accidents alone at this point.

Rumsfeld knew that the administrations enemies would be doing a casualty count and be good propaganda puppets for our enemies. He also knew that Saddam could be brought down with less - and he was.

The campaign was a great campaign and achieved the US goal almost immediately. The ABCs went perfectly and are still perfect.

A. Oust Saddam
B. Secure the oil fields
C. Set up a base.

That they want someone in there who will really bloat things up is a no-brainer. Naturally, the real price of a sustained occupation is far cheaper in lives and dollars, doing it Rumsfeld's way. But he will NEVER get credit from either the officers of the military ( who are still ticked about not getting the contractor kickbacks they got under Clinton who paid no attention to all that stuff ) or the media who are by nature anti-military and anti-Bush administration.

Rumsfeld is therefore a 72 year old punching bag for folks who think they could have done it better. Rumsfeld is great. He did more for less and we had nowhere near the 10,000 casualties the top folks projected it would require to oust Saddam. Rumsfeld made the longterm presence feasible. And our enemies hate him for it.

He will never get credit for that, except from folks like myself and the President. For Rumsfeld - that's enough.

Of course to our homegrown insurgency such words are like poison.