PUBLIC MARKS from multilinko with tag rumsfeld

Arizona's East Valley Tribune reports that Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona said he agrees with the generals who have criticized Rumsfeld, but that the president has the right to have the people he wants in key positions. "I was asked a long time ago, I think a year and a half or two years ago, if I had confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I was asked that directly. I said, 'No,'" the Republican senator said during a news conference at his Phoenix office. "But the president has the right and earned the right as the president of the United States to appoint his team — and he has confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I will continue to work with Secretary Rumsfeld as much as I can as long as he is secretary of Defense. We have to, because we need to win this war."

The commander who led the elite 82nd Airborne Division during its mission in Iraq has joined the chorus of retired generals calling on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to leave the Pentagon. "I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him," retired Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack told CNN's Barbara Starr on Thursday. Swannack is the second general who served in Iraq under Rumsfeld to call for him to resign.

The BBC is reporting that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is unhappy with the existing propaganda systems in place and insists that the US must create a 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims.