Donald Rumsfeld has over-come many obstacles during his tenure as defence secretary but the former wrestler could now face a formidable foe: a growing chorus of Republican politicians seeking his replacement.
Mr Rumsfeld drew the wrath of several Republicans last week when he appeared to dismiss the concerns of a soldier who asked why the Pentagon had not provided enough armour for military vehicles. “You go to war with the army you have …not the army you might want or wish to have,” Mr Rumsfeld responded to the soldier during a town-hall meeting in Kuwait.
No stranger to attacks from Democrats, Mr Rumsfeld encountered stiff criticism from Republicans. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate armed services committee, questioned his leadership, while Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska senator critical of the Pentagon's handling of the war, said US soldiers deserved more than a “flippant” response.
This week Trent Lott, the former Republican Senate majority leader, joined the small but growing group of Republicans who are publicly questioning whether President George W. Bush should make one more change to his cabinet by replacing Mr Rumsfeld.
“I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld…I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers,” the Mississippi senator told a local chamber of commerce on Wednesday. Mr Lott, who resigned as Senate majority leader in December 2002 after Mr Bush publicly rebuked him for making racially insensitive remarks, added: “I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so.”
With an abrasive style that some lawmakers see as arrogant, Mr Rumsfeld has had a rough relationship with members of Congress. But until recently most criticism has come from Democrats. When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal came to light this year, for example, Democrats lined up to call for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation. Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator, lambasted him, saying Saddam Hussein's torture chambers had reopened under US management.
In spite of private criticism that Mr Rumsfeld had not warned the White House of the now infamous Abu Ghraib photographs, however, Mr Bush stood firmly behind him. That support was reaffirmed this month when Mr Bush, fresh from re-election, asked Mr Rumsfeld to remain in charge of the Pentagon during his second term. But the support of the president has not stopped conservatives from voicing their concerns about Mr Rumsfeld. William Kristol, the neoconservative editor of the Weekly Standard journal, wrote a scathing editorial on Wednesday, calling for Mr Rumsfeld's head. “Surely Don Rumsfeld is not the defence secretary Bush should want to have for the remainder of his second term,” he wrote in the Washington Post.
John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator, recently said he had no confidence in the defence secretary. But for now Mr Rumsfeld is taking the criticism in his stride. Yesterday Mr Rumsfeld who once considered a bid for the White House put the criticism of his role in a new historical context.
“George Washington was constantly criticised, John Adams was constantly criticised, Abraham Lincoln was vilified and criticised,” he told WABC radio in New York City. “And our country's always survived it.”
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