Rumsfeld Screwed Up. Long live Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld shares major blame for U.S. military errors in Iraq. But the screw-up was a joint effort that involved several at the Pentagon, plus Bush and Chaney. Retired generals are fingering Rumsfeld because they believe someone should take a fall, and they know it’s not going to be the elected President and Vice President.

So Rumsfeld stays. And why not? Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, a veteran of insurgencies in Kosovo and Iraq who could have been promoted but instead retired last November, is perhaps the most effective voice calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster. But Batiste says it would be a disaster for the U.S. to “cut and run” from Iraq. So as far as the military is concerned, we’re not “bugging out,” Rumsfeld or no Rumsfeld.

Batiste believes the war would go better with a new leader and a fresh start. For sure. The fresh start we need, though, is a unified Iraq government—an Iraqi political, not U.S. military, challenge.

Politics messed up the Iraqi effort from the start. Bush wanted a victory in Iraq in 2003, not war in election year 2004. So we had to start liberating Iraq before the 2003 desert hot season, way before the U.S. could have managed any Colin-Powell- type army build-up. And anyway, how were we to build the big army Shinseki and others wanted? A draft? Even more “weekend warrior” call-ups? A super-expensive recruitment effort? It would have been nice had Turkey or other allies added troops, but they didn’t.

Rumsfeld told Bush what he wanted to hear—we could win in Iraq without a big army. He was wrong. Let’s win anyway.