POLL: Military Times Newspapers Say Rumsfeld Must Go

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Poll question: POLL: Military Times Newspapers Say Rumsfeld Must Go

Military Times editorial: ‘Rumsfeld must go’

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld —
Saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large, a Military Times editorial calls on President Bush to fire him.

Published in the Nov. 13 issue of Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times, on newsstands Monday, the editorial says it is time for the president “to face the hard bruising truth.”

“His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt,” the newspapers say.

In a statement released on Saturday, Department of Defense spokesman Bryan Whitman said that “the new ‘chorus of criticism’ noted by the editorials is actually old news and does not include commanders in the field, who remain committed to the mission….The assertion, without evidence, that senior military officers are ‘toeing the line’ is an insult to their judgment and integrity.”

http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2333376.php
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Rumsfeld must go, says US Army newspaper
By Simon Usborne
Published: 06 November 2006
In a fresh blow to the Republican Party's rapidly diminishing midterm election hopes, an influential US Army newspaper group is today calling on the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to resign for the "failure" of his military strategy.

The blunt message, published in the Military Times newspapers, which include the widely read Army Times, accuses Mr Rumsfeld of losing touch with military leadership and the American public.

The editorial, "Time for Rumsfeld to Go",says: "Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised." It concludes: "The time has come, Mr President, to face the hard bruising truth; Donald Rumsfeld must go."

The call could not come at a worse time for President George Bush or the Republicans. Tomorrow's elections are widely tipped to be a disaster for the party, with some predicting a Democrat recapture of both houses of Congress. The New York Times offered a fresh blow to the party yesterday saying that for the first time it was endorsing no Republican congressional candidates this year. In its editorial, the Times criticised the Republican-led Congress on matters from tax cuts to energy policy, and charged it has failed to hold Mr Bush accountable for the Iraq war.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1959037.ece
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Military media say 'Rumsfeld must go'
Editorial will run Monday in 4 papers popular among the forces

By MATTHEW B. STANNARD

"Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt," the editorial says, according to an advance copy released Friday. "Donald Rumsfeld must go."

The editorial will run in the 250,000 copies of Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times and Air Force Times. The newspapers are published under the umbrella Military Times Media Group by Gannett Co., not by the U.S. military, and have been popular among U.S. forces since World War II.

"I think it would be safe to say if the Army Times is saying that, it is something they are hearing from senior officers in the Army," said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

What prompted the paper's new editorial, said senior managing editor Robert Hodierne, was President Bush's statement Wednesday that he plans to keep Rumsfeld and that the Pentagon chief is doing a "fantastic job."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4311520.html
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Military Times Newspapers Say Rumsfeld Must Go

By LUIS MARTINEZ
ABC News

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2006 — On the eve of the midterm elections, an editorial by the Army Times and its sister publications calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign continues to spark political debate, but the newspapers' editor denies any political motivations behind the timing of the editorial.

Tobias Naegele, executive editor of the newspapers, discounts reports that the editorial's release was politically timed to run just before the elections.

"We were really aiming past the elections," said Naegele, adding that the newspapers' editorial boards had been "accumulating" an opinion over time that Rumsfeld should step down but that Bush's comments last week were a tipping point.

"There was no reason at this stage to be committing to someone who had not been effective in the job," said Naegele. "That was the last straw. That really pushed us to want to speak out."

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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2632330&page=1
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