What does Tommy Franks think?

In Plan of Attack, General Tommy Franks — the CentCom commander and architect of both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns who retired in the fall of 2003 — was quoted as describing Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as “The f***ing stupidest guy on the planet.” With a quotation like that, I’m kinda curious what Franks ...

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

August 1, 2004, 6:05 PM

In Plan of Attack, General Tommy Franks -- the CentCom commander and architect of both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns who retired in the fall of 2003 -- was quoted as describing Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as "The f***ing stupidest guy on the planet." With a quotation like that, I'm kinda curious what Franks will be saying in his soon-to-be-released book, American Soldier. Mark Thompson has a Q & A with Franks in Time that suggests a, dare I say it, complex take on the Bush Administration. Some of the good parts (the ALL CAPS are Thompson's questions):

In Plan of Attack, General Tommy Franks — the CentCom commander and architect of both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns who retired in the fall of 2003 — was quoted as describing Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as “The f***ing stupidest guy on the planet.” With a quotation like that, I’m kinda curious what Franks will be saying in his soon-to-be-released book, American Soldier. Mark Thompson has a Q & A with Franks in Time that suggests a, dare I say it, complex take on the Bush Administration. Some of the good parts (the ALL CAPS are Thompson’s questions):

IN YOUR BOOK, YOU ABSOLVE YOURSELF, PRESIDENT BUSH AND DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD OF INADEQUATE POSTWAR PLANNING. SO WHO’S RESPONSIBLE? It’s possible to underestimate the difficulty inside our bureaucracy as well as inside the international bureaucracy when it comes to things like fund raising. The planning, in fact, incorporated the need to rehire a quarter of a million Iraqis who had been in the military. When they all went home, they were unemployed. The question is, How long does it take to generate funding in order to re-employ these people? Unfortunately, it took too long. WELL, WASN’T IT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION THAT DISBANDED THE IRAQI ARMY? Actually, the Administration didn’t disband it—it melted away. It’s a blessing when an army melts away rather than dying in place. On the other hand, if what we’re after is to get reconstruction going, then that simply represents 250,000 angry young men. COULDN’T THE U.S. HAVE CALLED THEM BACK TO DUTY? We would have been wise to do that, and in my view we should have done that…. WHAT’S IT LIKE TO WORK FOR RUMSFELD? I wish Don Rumsfeld had had an easier, less-centralized management style. That does not imply that Don Rumsfeld screwed up the war. It says that I—and I suspect a lot of other people—would have had a whole lot better feeling undertaking these very important matters if Don Rumsfeld had been a very concerned people person. DO YOU THINK BUSH SHOULD BE RE-ELECTED? The way I’m going to mark my individual ballot I’ll keep to myself. Whether we like Bush or not, the quality of his judgments and the quality of his leadership has been honest. I respect him for that. I’m leaning in that direction.

Read the whole thing.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: U.S. Foreign Policy