Troops concerned they will not get to finish mission

Times:

Half of America and the upper echelons of the US military may be cheering Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation from the post of Defence Secretary, but there was no rejoicing yesterday among those most directly affected by his decisions: the frontline soldiers in Iraq.

Troops expressed little pleasure at the departure of the man responsible for their protracted deployment to a hostile country where 2,839 of their comrades have died.

Indeed, some members of the 101st Airborne Division and other troops approached by The Times as they prepared to fly home from Baghdad airport yesterday expressed concern that Robert Gates, Mr Rumsfeld’s successor, and the Democrat-controlled Congress, might seek to wind down their mission before it was finished.

Mr Rumsfeld “made decisions, he stuck with them and he did what he thought was right, whether people agreed with it, liked it, or not”, Staff Sergeant Frank Notaro said. He insisted that Iraq was better off now than before the war.

Staff Sergeant Michael Howard said: “It’s a blow to the military. He was a good Secretary of Defence. He kept us focused. He kept the leaders focused. It’s going to be hard to fill his shoes.”

...

Sergeant Ron Carter, of the 101st, said: “It’s a bad situation. It's a tough situation. But I think [Rumsfeld] probably did the right thing for the right reasons. Maybe it could have been a bit better planned, but helping people who were suffering — that’s a good reason.”

Major Mike Jason, who has been advising an Iraqi battalion for the past year, said that it remained to be seen how Mr Rumsfeld would be judged. “I hope history will judge that we did something good and stuck with it and saw it through, because it’s already been pretty damn costly.”

The story also quoted an unnamed colonel who repeated the main myth about the Rumsfled era.

Stars & Stripes also talked to the troops in Iraq about the Rumsfeld decision. Captain's Quarters comments on the Times article as well was an article from the NY Times that tries to show Marines in Iraq in a lesser light.