He nailed it word for word. He said it better than I ever could:
"When you look at the transformation that our military has been through, it is nothing short of remarkable. I think there's only one person in America who could have brought about that transformation, and that's Donald Rumsfeld."
How true. Our volunteer Army, stretched to the breaking point. Our military families, stressed also to the breaking point, with soldiers now facing their 3rd and even 4th deployment to Iraq. Our military budget, bloated beyond recognition by the hundreds of billions spent to "stay the course" in Iraq. Our National Guard, stripped of units needed at home, and unable to train whatever reserves are still inside the U.S. because most of their equipment was shipped to Iraq and left there. Senior Military Officers retiring early so they can be free as civilians to speak out in public against this Secretary of Defense. Stockpiles of military equipment, exhausted 7 times faster than budgeted for due to harsh dessert conditions (and of course combat). Our flexibility to respond to other national security threats elsewhere on the globe, hardly a plausible threat to any potential foe, now that the U.S. is pinned down in Iraq indefinitely under this Administration. Services for Veterans now past the breaking point, with more and more soldiers returning home with serious wounds and life long disabilities while funding for Veteran needs continue to effectively be cut.
But John Boehmer and I do differ on one point. All the credit for this nothing short of remarkable military transformation shouldn't just go to Donald Rumsfeld. George W. Bush deserves a lot of the credit also.
If you want to watch a video of Rep John Boemer making his keen observation, you will find a link to it at the left of this CNN story:
Bush: Cheney, Rumsfeld will stay through '08
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/01/bush.cheney.ap/index.html