Rumsfeld quits after Republicans' Iraq-driven loss

WASHINGTON, Nov 9: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the controversial face of American war policy, said he quit because the political climate changed after Democrats' big election win, driven by anger over Iraq.

''It'll be a different Congress, a different environment, moving towards a presidential election, and a lot of partisanship and it struck me that this would be a good thing for everybody,'' Rumsfeld told a handful of Pentagon reporters.

President George W Bush said he agreed with his top war manager that it was time for a change and said Iraq policy was ''not working well enough, fast enough.'' Former CIA Director Robert Gates, a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group assessing alternative Iraq strategies and president of Texas A&M University, will replace Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld, a pugnacious figure who has been in the job since the start of Bush's first term in January 2001, has long been a lightning rod for criticism of the Iraq war.

''Yesterday's election was a cry for change and for the first time it looks like the president is listening,'' said Sen.

Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who headed his party's Senate campaign.

Rumsfeld will stay on until Gates is in place. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said he hoped Gates would be confirmed to replace him in the coming weeks.

Rumsfeld, 74 and the second-longest serving defense secretary, has taken much of the blame amid growing US public discontent over the Iraq war. Some Republican strategists angrily said their party could have saved some seats if Rumsfeld resigned earlier.

Tuesday's elections gave the Democrats control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years and results by Wednesday had moved them within one seat of victory in the Senate.

The slap to Bush's Republican Party came largely on the back of voter frustration over Iraq, where more than three years of combat have failed to stop violence plaguing much of the country. The total US military death toll since the US-led invasion in March 2003 is currently 2,839.

CRITICISM OF RUMSFELD

Rumsfeld has faced criticism for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the Guantanamo Bay jail for foreign terrorism suspects, failure to anticipate Iraq's insurgency and the quantity of troops and armor sent to the war.

Democrats have not been Rumsfeld's only critics.

High-ranking Republicans also have raised doubts about Rumsfeld and expressed little confidence in his leadership.

Retired generals demanded his resignation for months and accused him of ignoring military advice.

He is seen within the military and further afield as both forceful and charming, caustic and jocular. While praised as a patriot who reinvigorated the military, he also is disparaged for botching wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a long-time Republican insider and colleague of Vice President Dick Cheney, he wielded tremendous power in the current administration, perhaps matched only by Robert McNamara, who served presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War era.

Defense officials said they expected Gates to manage with a similarly aggressive style as Rumsfeld's, and bring with him a large slate of new advisors. Many of Rumsfeld's non-military advisors were preparing to leave.

Rumsfeld's departure comes as the Democrats' victory in the House and gains in the Senate ensure investigations into the Pentagon's management of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rep Ike Skelton, poised to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, vowed to re-examine US policy in Iraq and focus on better oversight of the Pentagon.

Analysts said the change at the top of the Pentagon would make it easier for Bush to change course on Iraq, although it remained to be seen whether the administration could come up with a more effective plan.

Some said it was now more likely that the United States would reduce levels of troops in Iraq, currently at 152,000.

''I think there's no question that the size of the American commitment to Iraq will be scaling back,'' said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank. ''The only question is what the schedule of that shrinkage will be.'' Bush yesterday insisted there would be no sudden US withdrawal of troops and stuck to his refusal to set a timetable.

REUTERS