Influence of Joint Chiefs starting to rebound

Military critics say the generals' voices had been muffled under Rumsfeld, allowing mistakes in Iraq.
By Julian E. Barnes
Times Staff Writer

February 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — When President Bush went to the Pentagon in December to discuss his new war strategy with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld scheduled the meeting for his own conference room.

The chiefs rejected Rumsfeld's plan for the conference. Instead, according to a military source briefed on the meeting, they sent word that they would be in "the Tank," the Joint Chiefs' own secret briefing room. If the president and Rumsfeld wanted to hear their views, they could find them there.

It was a declaration that went unnoticed outside the Pentagon at the time, and Bush met with the generals on their terms. But it signaled a determination by the nation's top uniformed military officers to take on a greater role in shaping U.S. war policy after years in which some military critics said their voices had been muffled. >>>cont

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