WASHINGTON -- As he stepped down from office this week as the U.S. Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki probably breathed a big sigh of relief. He had been put through the meat grinder in his job, particularly during Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's tenure.
Shinseki deserved better. An extremely honorable and ethical man with a distinguished combat record, the first Japanese-American to lead a U.S. military service, and the father of the Army's plan for transformation to a lighter and more deployable force, he should have been viewed as a hero. In real time, Washington has thought of him as the man most likely to be in Rumsfeld's cross hairs on any given day. The rumor mill also sees his Army as the military service most likely to suffer deep force cuts to free up funding for Rumsfeld's broader military transformation agenda.
Upon closer inspection, however, Rumsfeld and Shinseki have served the nation well together. On most major decisions related to ground forces made since early 2001 -- budget matters and the Bush administration's quadrennial defense review (QDR), the battle plan for Afghanistan, the Crusader artillery system debate, the battle plan for Iraq and, even now, the stabilization mission in Iraq -- the better idea generally prevailed.