i think he might be.
2 world wars happened under his watch. one of them was apparently instigated by him (or konoha), and there was several smaller conflicts like with orochimaru, and kumo and the sand.
i mean how freaking bad a protector are you that thousands of your people have died in several invasions and wars? people bash tsunade for sending genin to get sasuke back but hell, she didnt know theyd be facing 4 full fledged bodyguards from oro or that it was oro behind sasukes fall in the first place. she couldnt send adults or the other villages would realise something was wrong, and konoha was undermanned from oro's invasion. just tsunade trying to clean up this old fuk's mess. how many genin/young chunin did he send into the meatgrinder of war?
1) let orochimaru go. i wonder how many thousands of people died because of that little mistake. not to mention sasukes fall from grace was engineered by two people hiruzen had under his command at some point. thanks old coot for unleashing a second madara
2) was pretty much the elder's bitch and couldnt jsut say "you know what? fuk you. we're doing this my way. we arent gonna segegrate uchihas/start a world war/allow danzo to keep his anbus.
3) allowed danzo to keep in a seat of power, despite his obvious corrupt tendencies. danzo outright said to hiruzens face he still had anbu under his command. and hiruzen does nothing
4) allowed the village to lose its two strongest fighters, tsunade and jiraiya to world wanderings for decades. yeah dont bother protecting the village and hunting down these traitors or anything.
5) made itachi leave for no reason given he didnt give them anything of worth about akatsuki and is the worst spy in history, leaving konoha to pretty much fight them blind
6) allowed naruto to be hated and abused for most of his childhood instead of you know, respecting minato.
