Mackubin Thomas Owens Kissin' Rummy's Butt-Cheeks

A very good point made by Mac Owens on NRO.
Rumsfeld is not responsible for anything, and everything is someone else's fault.
Too few troops? It's Turkey's fault for not letting us use their country as a northern front, and the fault of the generals for not planning: "but Wilson reserves his toughest criticism for Army commanders who, he concludes, failed to grasp the strategic situation in Iraq and so not did not plan properly for victory." Presumably, he is suggestingthat the real problem is that we succeeded only too well, but if he is suggesting that it is the uniforms who underestimated the difficulty of occupying Iraq, he is dead wrong, as an article by James Fallows in the Atlantic monthly (sunscription required to see more than the first paragraph or so) revealed.
In any case, the knee-capping of General Shinseki when he suggested we needed more troops shows that if generals were reluctant to plan for a difficult occupation, they had good reason.
Mac also suggests that it's the fault of the uniformed military because they often exaggerrate troop requirements in order to stop wars they don't want to fight, and also lambastes war critics for criticizing Rumsfeld for under-manning the occupation because according to him, the argument has shifted since before he war: namely, it was originally suggested that we didn't even have enough troops to depose Saddam, which in hindsight was obviously false, and then the idea that it was the occupation that was short-staffed only became an issue after we won the initial combat phase of the war.
This ignores the fact that generals like Shinseki were concerned with troop levels because of hwo many troops they felt were necessary to hold Iraq while democratizing it, not with how many troops were necessary to depose Saddam.
In essence, Mr. Owens is suggesting that ritics of Rumsfeld are upset at him for not being omniscient or for not planning the war perfectly.
No, we are upset at him because his strategy for the war was based on the totally unrealistic assumption that as soon as we conquered Iraq, the people would rally to us, allowing us to democratize Iraq with very few troops. Only a person with optimism bordering on the moronic would have thought this.
It would be far more believable if Mr. Owens went the Newt Gingrich route and said that Rumsfeld's plans were perfect, but that those evil State Deptartmenters and CIA people wouldn't let us install Chalabi, who would have magically caused Iraq to quiet down and democratize. I mean, if you believe in fairy tales, why not go all the way?