For months I've been blasting Donald Rumsfeld and his astonishing incompetence as Secretary of Defense, and Bush for putting him in a position of total control over the occupation of Iraq and then letting him screw it up so monumentally. It's nice to see at least a few Bush supporters coming around to see what a disaster this guy has been. Bill Kristol, one of the smartest guys on the right, lashed out at Rumsfeld in the Washington Post this morning:
Contrast the magnificent performance of our soldiers with the arrogant buck-passing of Rumsfeld...At least the topic of those conversations in the Pentagon isn't boring. Indeed, Rumsfeld assured the troops who have been cobbling together their own armor, "It's interesting." In fact, "if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." Good point. Why have armor at all? Incidentally, can you imagine if John Kerry had made such a statement a couple of months ago? It would have been (rightly) a topic of scorn and derision among my fellow conservatives, and not just among conservatives.
Perhaps Rumsfeld simply had a bad day. But then, what about his statement earlier last week, when asked about troop levels? "The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control." Really? Well, "the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted."
Leave aside the fact that the issue is not "the number of troops we had for the invasion" but rather the number of troops we have had for postwar stabilization. Leave aside the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks had projected that he would need a quarter-million troops on the ground for that task -- and that his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available. Leave aside the fact that Rumsfeld has only grudgingly and belatedly been willing to adjust even a little bit to realities on the ground since April 2003. And leave aside the fact that if our generals have been under pressure not to request more troops in Iraq for fear of stretching the military too thin, this is a consequence of Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the size of the military after Sept. 11.
In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort. Rumsfeld acknowledged this last week, after a fashion: "I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine." Except he fails to take responsibility.
All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments. Some have stubbornly persisted in their misjudgments. But have any so breezily dodged responsibility and so glibly passed the buck?
And this after he talked Bush into letting the Pentagon handle the post-war occupation rather than the State Department, which has always handled such things in the past. He's the one guy who has had almost total control over both the war and the occupation in Iraq, and according to Pentagon insiders, he wanted only 40,000 troops initially and the generals had to talk him into the number we got. And yet this is the one guy in the cabinet who is staying, the one who should be gone the most. Bill Kristol is right - the soldiers over there fighting the war deserve a better leader than this.
- Log in to post comments
McCaine also came out in heavy criticism on Rumsfeld, although that can hardly be a surprise. Still all this shows the hypocracy of politics. The conservatives nail Kerry for being weak, and yet now that they've won and and they don't have to cover their asses as closely, their true indifference is leaking through. Not that Kerry would have done any better, mind you.
It's just sickening. They talk out of their asses about patriotism and "supporting the troops" all the while seated atop their high horses. If Bush really cared about the "war on terror", Rumsfeld would have been fired long ago.
"They talk out of their asses... all the while seated atop their high horses." Chris, that is a delightful mixed metaphor, quite amusing to envisage.
If Bush were to get rid of Rumsfeld would be tantamount to an admission of error--on virtually the only issue--the "War against (some) terror--that he campaigned on during the election campaign. Bush can't let that happen--at least not immediately. On the other hand, if you notice, Rummy isn't now being put before the public nearly as often as he was even six months ago. And his appearance last week before the military in Iraq was an absolute disaster.
I'm not really for or against Rumsfeld personally, but I think all this criticism is way overblown.
He has been 'in charge' through 2 very successfull wars and one moderately bad occupation. Our casualties are very light overall and his strategies were extremely cost effective and fast.
I think the sudden outrage is more of a power struggle for Republicans now that they have no external forces to contend with (the election). They are all busy trying to consolidate their 'mandate' into more personal power. Rumsfeld is an easy target who poses very little political danger to attack. Couple that with democrats who are going to naturally be against Rumsfeld and more than willing to pile on their own criticisms when there is an opportunity to do so without fear of being smeared, and the end result is what we see and hear this week.
He has been 'in charge' through 2 very successfull wars and one moderately bad occupation. Our casualties are very light overall and his strategies were extremely cost effective and fast.
I strongly disagree. Fighting those wars was the easy part, the enemies were practically in the stone age by comparison. In Iraq, the occupation is all that really matters, as it was a foregone conclusion that we would win the initial war and topple Saddam. The only thing that really mattered was what happened after we took over, to the point where the entire future of Iraq and perhaps the entire middle east hinged on how quickly and successfully we stabilized (made secure) and rebuilt Iraq and how effectively we could move them toward something resembling a stable, democratic nation. In that crucial task, every single decision that Rumsfeld made was the wrong decision. We went in there thoroughly unprepared to secure or rebuild the nation and we are now reaping what our lack of preparation sowed there. And our men and women are dying because of it in far greater numbers than necessary.
And... It's not like any of this was not known pre-invasion. It is the height of incompetence to have gone in they way we did, NOT having sufficient forces for the worst case scenario. From 9-11 intelligence failures, to the hands-off the Middle East peace process, to Iraq, to North Korea, to Iran, to Bin Laden STILL at large... WHO IS GOING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY?? No one has to this point. It's disgusting. But all the Right Wing has to do is raise the God, Guns, and Gays and all the aforementioned FAILURES are forgiven.