J$P Instant Transcript! Col McInerney on Donald Rumsfeld and the War on Terror. Plus: Shep gets an angry email. With J$P Video!

From Studio B, April 14 2006:

SHEPARD SMITH [FOX NEWS]: Joining us from Washington now is Fox News military analyst, the retired Air Force Lt General Tom McInerney. Sir, good of you to come; thank you.

LT GEN TOM McINERNEY: Thanks, Shep. Good to be here.

SMITH: Thank you. Would like to read from one of them, this is from [General] Newbold: "The cost of flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood. We need fresh ideas and fresh faces, and that means a first step, replacing Donald Rumsfeld and many other unwilling to fundamentally change their approach." What do you make of this?

McINERNEY:Well look, I have a different opinion of it, and here's my view. The two Marines, Zinni and Newbold, and I know Newbold, didn't think we should go in there. As a matter of fact, they don't think that it's Islamic extremism that our problem is. And they are dead wrong. They do not understand why we have a forward strategy. So I wipe them off right away. Their positions just aren't tenable. Now, the next, most of the Army generals all believe that we should have been there. Their complaint is, is he's gruff, he's hard, he micromanages, and--

SMITH:And that he didn't plan the war right.

McINERNEY:--and he didn't plan the war right.

SMITH:And he's not handling the aftermath of the war right, and that things are not going well.

McINERNEY:Well look, let me say a couple things, Shep. We've been doing a transformation in the military, primarily the Army. We took down Afghanistan in less than two months, and it took the Russians ten years and they had to get out. We took down the most powerful army in the Middle East in 21 days. Now you tell me we didn't plan that right? First of all, we didn't do the initial planning in Afghanistan. We reacted, but we did brilliantly. We did brilliantly in both. Now, is it a tough fight? You bet it's a tough fight. But people who believe in blowing themselves up, flying airplanes into buildings, that believe in death--did anybody think if we had a million people there it would have been easier? The fact is--

SMITH:With great respect, sir, these are not the people who flew the airplanes into the building. This is a different crowd, though this administration seems to want us to think that it was the Iraqis who did that in the first place.

McINERNEY:Now wait a second, Shep. It's the Islamic extremists, and the former regime loyalists are mated there, but most of the carnage going on in Iraq today, over 90%, are Islamic extremists. If they weren't doing that it would be an entirely different situation. So they are the same group that flew the airplanes in. Now look, two days ago Saddam's daughter said, two days before the bombing, Usama Bin Laden called Saddam Hussein and told him how he survived in Tora Bora. So there is a direct link to the terrorists and to the previous regime. And there is a direct link to most of the carnage going on over there. I would agree that the former regime loyalists, and the people that we made some mistakes and we cut out all the Bathists, that we put them into a position where they had to do an insurgency. But let's get back to Rumsfeld.

SMITH:Good.

McINERNEY:The fact is, he went through a transformation. The Army had the biggest transformation challenge. They had two of their major weapons systems canceled: the Crusader heavy artillery piece, and the Cheyenne stealthy helicopter. They had some problems with their Army Chief, and it was a little rocky. Rich Shinseki is a very good man; Tom White is a very good Secretary. But they were not transforming fast enough. In addition, they had to go outside the Army, the active duty Army, to get a new Chief of Staff for the Army that would in fact transform the Army. And they're a brilliant job now, there's no question. So there is a lot of scar tissue at that level. The question is, you've got to ask Tom Franks, you've got to ask George Casey, you've got to ask John Abizaid: are they getting all they want from the Secretary of Defense? Is he challenging? Yes. But the fact is, going and fighting Islamic extremism, the best person in this nation to try to defeat them is Don Rumsfeld. And let's not make any mistakes about it. And despite what the media says, we are winning. There are 50 million people that are free over there, in December 11 million voted. Over 70% of that nation voted. So people that tell me we're not winning, if you were on the other side, you'd look at it a lot differently.

SMITH:Nobody in this chair is saying we're not winning. What we're doing is talking, listening to Generals who were over there at the time. Most recently the Generals say, they weren't listening to us about troop levels. They are not team players and team builders. Quoting from Gen Batiste: "I believe we need a fresh start in the Pentagon. We need a leader who understands teamwork. A leader who knows how to build teams, a leader who does it without intimidation, a leader who conforms with the practices and the letter of the law of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Conversely, I think we need senior military leaders who apply the principles of war, and apply them ruthlessly. And when the time comes, they need to call it like it is." He and other have suggested that their calls, quietly, within the hierarchy of the military as required under military code, were not listened to, and that would could happen next at least is a resignation, a sort of falling on the sword. Is it your sense that that could change attitudes?

McINERNEY:I don't believe that's going to happen. And look, I think where they have gone wrong is they've let themselves get into a politicized situation that isn't good for the nation. Now if they think Don Rumsfeld leaves and everything becomes great, well I think they misunderstand the problem, and they misunderstand this global threat that we're fighting. And they're very bright people, I respect their desire to say what they want, but that's not going to change the situation no matter who the Secretary of Defense is. The Army had to get lighter. The Army had to go more joint. And the fact is, a lot of Army Generals didn't want to do that and they're still upset. Now these are good people, they're division commanders. I was over there, I've been with them, and they're great people. But reasonable people can have different viewpoints, and I believe they ought to handle it a different way.

SMITH:Well in fact, what some of them have said is that they tried to handle it a different way, that they tried--and they've said it without saying these exact words, but they made it perfectly clear, I think you'd agree, that they have said things that, well things didn't go there way. Well the fact of the matter is, the way things work is, there's leadership and then there are the rest. So the leaders have said, let's do it this way. What some of these are saying is: we fought a war, we took down a regime, we got to Baghdad faster than anybody in the world could have ever dreamed, including ourselves, that we'd get there, and we ended it. Over. It's what's happening now that we don't seem to know how to deal with, that we're not handling properly. This insurgency which might last a few months has now gone on for a few years, at a cost of 7 or 8 billion dollars at a pop. And there doesn't seem to be any real solution for ending it all. And I just wondered if it's your sense that, aside from putting down the insurgents and stopping those who would want us all dead, is it your sense that this is a group that can bring this to a resolution, get us out at some point with some degree of safety, and leave them in a position where they can run themselves?

McINERNEY:Yeah, I believe that. And I believe that if we had a million people there, we still were going to have this fight. This fight has had to come. So no matter how many people we threw at it, and there are a lot of Army Generals that wanted to go to a million man Army. There are a lot of Army Generals that wanted to get the lion's share of the resources. So below--you don't see any Admirals or Air Force Generals going out on the street on this. And so look, these are good people, and I'm not saying it, but they didn't get their way all the time. And look, we are going to get out of there. We are winning; things are going in our direction. But I'll tell you it's a tough fight, and if you would have asked me on Dec 16, 1944, were we going to get home by Christmas, and I was sitting in Bastogne, I'd have said no. That's a tough fight. I'm not denying that it's not a tough fight, and it's going to be a tough fight against these Islamic extremists. See what's going on Iran. There's a lot of fight left over there, and people have got to understand that.

SMITH:Thank you very much, General. It's great to see you; have a great Easter.

McINERNEY:Thanks, Shep.

And then this [QuickTime video clip]: