Six Against the Secretary: The Retired Generals and Donald Rumsfeld - Army and Marine Corps Generals Speak Out During Iraq War Against Bush Defense Secretary, Standards of Propriety, Law and Theory

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The nature of civil-military relations in the United States is characterized by tensions resulting from a variety of competing principles including autonomy and subordination, self-interest and communalism, and loyalty and freedom. These tensions sometimes manifest themselves in conflict between institutions and individuals, but the disputes rarely capture the attention of the American public. Last year one such conflict garnered widespread media coverage. Beginning in the spring, six retired general officers spoke out in very quick succession and in very public ways against the performance and policies of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. This paper examines the conduct of these officers and reluctantly concludes that, despite their contribution to the public discourse on the Iraq war, this group eroded the nation's civil-military relations. More broadly, this paper seeks to define the circumstances in which and methods by which it is proper for retired generals to openly oppose elected and appointed civilian leaders; it finds the bounds of legality regarding their speech to be highly permissive but the bounds of propriety to be rather limited.

The paper begins by detailing the events that constitute this so-called "revolt of the generals": their initial media appearances in March and April of 2006, the reaction of the administration, subsequent media appearances through the summer and fall, and the resignation of Rumsfeld in November and its immediate aftermath. It quotes extensively from the principals, so to capture the tenor of the debate and document the participants' use of language. Having outlined the events of those eight months, the paper then compares the generals' words and actions to standards in the law and the writings of classical civil-military relations theorists such as Samuel P. Huntington and Morris Janowitz, as well as to the ideas of more recent commentators. It then synthesizes these ideas into a specific evaluation of the conduct of these officers and proposes standards of propriety applicable to all retired general officers.

INTRODUCTION * DIALOGUE OF THE REVOLT * Initial Media Appearances of The Six Generals * Maj Gen (ret) Paul D. Eaton, USA * Gen (ret) Anthony C. Zinni, USMC * Lt Gen (ret) Gregory S. Newbold, USMC * Maj Gen (ret) John M. Riggs, USA * Maj Gen (ret) Charles H. Swannack, Jr., USA * Maj Gen (ret) John R.S. Batiste, USA * Initial Reaction of the Administration * Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld * Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen Peter Pace, USMC * President George W. Bush * Other Retired Generals Discuss The Six * Gen (ret) Richard B. Myers, USAF and Gen (ret) Tommy R. Franks, USA * Fox News Military Analysts Writing in The Wall Street Journal * The Drumbeat Continues * April's Momentum Slows in May * The McCaffrey Memorandum * The Haditha Killings * A Quiet Summer * Prelude to Election Day * The Senate Democratic Policy Committee * "Donald Rumsfeld, Man of War" * State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III * Deteriorating Poll Numbers * A Presidential Vote of Confidence * Military Times Newspapers Weigh In * Rumsfeld's Resignation and Its Aftermath * A Presidential Change of Course * Three Retired Generals Comment * By the Numbers * Notes * COMPARISONS TO LAW AND THEORY * Law * Classical Theorists * Samuel P. Huntington * Morris Janowitz * Modern Theorists * Eliot A. Cohen * Andrew J. Bacevich * Richard H. Kohn * Peter D. Feaver * Armed Forces Journal Roundtable * Other Commentators * Notes * SYNTHESIS * The Public Good * The Duty to Speak Out * The Right to Speak Out * The Time to Speak Out * The Means to Speak Out * Conclusion * BIBLIOGRAPHY * Transcripts * Newspaper Items * Periodicals * Books * Congressional Hearings and Reports * Directives and Statutes * Online Biographies * Miscellaneous Publications