It is alleged, by former Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong, that Donald Rumsfeld once interrupted a briefing of his with the remark: "General, there was no verb in the last sentence." The retired general gave this to CNN as evidence of Mr Rumsfeld's obsession with trivial details.Let me explain the U.S. defence secretary's curious remark. A sentence without a verb has no meaning. It is a waste not only of the speaker's breath, but of his auditor's time. As Harry Truman once said, being stupid "is hardly against the law for a general"; but it is an inconvenience. And the inability to form sentences is not trivial.
There are a lot of retired generals in the U.S. just now -- Mr Rumsfeld may have the Guinness record for cashiering them -- and a lot of second-guessing about Iraq. The most serious criticism has come from former Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in north-west Iraq two years ago. He told the same TV network the U.S. is in a fix in Iraq, "because Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ignored sound military advice, dismissed it all, went with his plan and his plan alone."