http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/06/bush-no-military-guy-is-gonna-tell-a-civilian-how-to-reactBush: ‘No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react.’In April, President Bush defended his plan to veto a bill mandating a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq by arguing that he would not “substitute the judgment of politicians in Washington for the judgment of our commanders on the ground.” But in Robert Draper’s new Bush bio, Dead Certain, the President’s opinion on the wisdom of military commanders is quite different:
So did Bartlett, who shared with Bush the concern that dumping Rumsfeld now would make it appear that the administration was acquiescing to the Rummy-must-go sentiments expressed on April 12 by retired Major General John Batiste and on the following day by retired Major General Charles Swannack (“My reaction,” Bush would recall of the so-called General’s Revolt, “was, ‘No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react.’” White House aides who had hoped to see Rumsfeld fired had predicted glumly that the retired generals’ remarks would prompt exactly that response from the boss. As one of them would lament, “The moment someone would say ‘Fire Donald Rumsfeld,’ Donald Rumsfeld would get a new lease on life.”) (p. 398)
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