U.S. Army Times to call for Rumsfeld's resignation: report

An editorial to be published Monday in independent publications that serve the four main branches of the U.S. military will call for President George W. Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CNN reported Saturday.

"Basically, the editorial says, it's clear now, from some of the public statements that military leaders are making, that he's lost the support and respect of the military leadership," Robert Hodierne, senior managing editor for the publications' parent company Army Times Publications, was quoted as saying.

"That they're starting to go public with that now, with their disagreements, added up with all of the other missteps we believe he's made, that it's time for him to be replaced," he said.

Army Times Publications publishes the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and the Marine Corps Times. The four weekly newspapers are distributed in the general stores and commissaries on military around the world, the report said.

It is the second time the publications have called for Rumsfeld to resign.

In May 2004, when the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke, an Army Times editorial said that was not "just a failure of leadership at the local command level," but "a failure that ran straight to the top."

The editorial said accountability was essential, even if that meant relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

The timing of Monday's editorial was prompted not by midterm elections, scheduled for Tuesday, but by Bush's statement earlier this week that he intended to keep Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney in their posts through the end of his term, Hodierne said.

Hodierne said their aim was to express the message that "for the good of the service, for the good of the country, it's time for this guy to go," according to the CNN report.

Source: Xinhua