For those of you holding your breath and waiting for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to either announce his resignation or be fired, you can go ahead and exhale.

The White House has been cleaning house the past few months: Chief of Staff Andrew Card was replaced, so was Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is having his duties “shifted.” However, Rumsfeld managed to stick around despite heavy criticism of his leadership and decisions, much of which stems from opposition to the war in Iraq.

Six retired generals have called for Rumsfeld’s resignation, including Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who said in an interview on CBS’s “Early Show,” "We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served under a secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team (www.CBS.com)."

Okay, Batiste was a little harsh toward the end, but he has a point.

The plan for the war in Iraq was flawed because no one really knew what was going to happen once U.S. military went in and took over. Maybe even Rumsfeld himself wasn’t aware of the consequences. Iraq is a country that needed a strong team to help establish a new government that would try and maintain peace.

Even though Rumsfeld let a potential plan for peace slip through his fingers he won’t resign simply based on the principle that if he did it would mean admitting to his failure as secretary of defense. If Rumsfeld resigned it would give the impression that the war in Iraq was a sham (which is a completely separate argument but bear with me) if he quit and gave the public the notion that he wasn’t able to complete his job.

Our president, with plummeting approval ratings, jumped to Rumsfeld’s defense to protect his ally and fellow war supporter. During a time when generals, senators, members of congress and political critics are trying to send the message that the secretary of defense isn’t fulfilling his job perhaps this isn’t the best time to for him to put his fingers in his ears and ignore their advice. They could be right.
If there is another shuffle and we are able to have a new defense secretary, then it would be time to have a person who would work on progress in Iraq instead of leaving everyone reconsidering his ability and whether he is fit for the job of protecting the country.