Who do you think that historians will write as the worst Sec Def: McNamara or Rumsfeld, and why?

Question

Robert McNamara, 1960's - Vietnam
Donald Rumsfeld, 2000's - Iraq
Their decisions, policies, plans and execution of same.

Answer 1

Of the two I would say McNamara, but the real loser was Lincoln's Sec. War in the Civil War (at least his first one, I cannot recall the man's name).

Rumsfeld is not a bad Sec. of Defense, the Iraq war is being lost at home on the political front. To win a guerrilla war a nation has to have the support of the people at home, something neither Bush or Johnson have shown a great deal of success with.

McNamara's drawback in comparison to Rumsfeld was a strong tendency to over control the conflict from Washington. Decisions that should have been made by field grade officers in country were often dictated from Washington.

Answer 2

I'm not sure one looking from the outside can make a good observation. One has to understand the whole agenda. The war is created or fought for reasons some of us can never understand. Think... if you understood the plan wouldn't those who stand to lose understand the plan? This would be like giving your opponents your playbook. So I refuse to judge these statesmen do to a lack of understanding of the big scheme. However, on a daily basis it's easy to catch Mr. Rumsfield using language as his best ammunition. He's very clever and the words are ambiguous so that he's not understood.....

Answer 3

Rumsfeld isn't history yet, so it's hard to say. But I think he should have resigned, or Bush should have fired him long ago.

Answer 4

it's hard to say whose worse. however, if you watch a documentary called "The Fog of War" (dir. errol morris), McNamara admits that he and his cabinet were war criminals, breaks down crying in remorse for some of the things that he did, and calls for world peace, which i think scores him a few points.