Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the war in Iraq in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. “The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago,” he wrote. “A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans.”
But many others aren’t convinced about the success of the war or of Rumsfeld’s leadership. Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation. “He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq,” he wrote. “Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.
But in today’s news conference, President Bush remained loyal to Rumsfeld. “I don’t believe he should resign,” Bush said. “He’s done a fine job.”
Sure he doesn’t mean “a heckuva job”?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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53 Comments
How do you kill a poisonsous snake? Cut off its head.
Rummy is a problem… caused by bush. Cheney is a problem… caused by bush. Chertoff is a problem… caused by bush.
If bush were to go, all the king’s men and all the king’s horses would have to go too.
Sing with me to “mrs robinson”
“Where have you gone, russell feingold, a nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you….woo woo woo.”
Rummy is just a cog in the zionist machine and not much would be served by replacing him with another compliant functionary.
V.L.R.B!!
Imagine that, Phillip with another anti-administration piece.
I would imagine that of the 1 million plus members in the armed forces and the thousands in top leadership there are those that both agree and disagree with the way Rumsfield handles things.
It is not a news story to find one that has retired and qoute him as if Rumsfield is some awful person.
This is not news, this is another wonderful attack piece by our unbiased and truth telling media via Phillip.
Thank you for you wonderful journalistic contributions good sir. How would we ever get the news without you?
Well well well, both nathan and I are on phillip’s case today. He must be doing a REALLY good job :)
Rumsfield needs to go. He is a criminal!
To give further evidence of his and the Bush/Cheney crimes against humanity go to the below site. Do you have Children? Look good at how well things are going in Iraq because of the so called war that should not have been!
Posted at: http://www.chris-floyd.com/march/ Click if you don’t see the photos.HAVE YOU GOT KIDS?So much for targeting insurgents
A real die-hard Bush supporter, professional stalwart and The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes says Rumsfeld should go (to be replaced by Cheney, who in turn is replaced by Condi…
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008116
…in a game of musical chairs where, ultimately, Rove, Rumsfeld, and McClellan are lost and Glenn Hubbard, Dan Senor, and the current ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, are gained).
Rumsfeld was around with Johnson during the build-up of the Vietnam War, with Nixon (more Vietnam), with Daddy Bush (Gulf War), and now with Junior (Operation Whatever-the-Hell). Anyone see a correlation? I know better than to ask if he himself has ever served in the military.
Golly. Where would Nathan be without his victim complex? He’d have to actually consider the merits of the arguments deployed by his political opponents.
A tip: given Nathan’s leaden use of irony, he might want to leave that particular tool to others.
He was a Navy fighter pilot.
This is what you get when you put a businessman
(personnel are human resources best used to fullest productivity but ultimately expendable to achieve the most lucrative bottom line)
in charge of administrating the military.
Replacing Rumsoaked with someone like Condi Rice would only amount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Of course, the only reason we stopped was to pick up ice!
We have people on Death Row who have not even come close to committing the crimes of Bush and that bag of shit known as neoconservatives.
We don’t have a White House anymore. It’s now officially an Out-House.
A gift from AIPAC.
CF,
Do you even have a reason why you think Rumsfield should go or is it now that Phillip has made it a topic you decided to jump on the bandwagon?
Well apparently Rumsfeld thinks he should go. He offered his resignation twice. bush wouldn’t take it. So the fault for any wrongs of Rumsfeld then falls (as farmgrrl pointed out upthread) to bush.
Oh and yes bush should go. Ask any Republican congressman out of range of a reporter.
Rumsfeld has botched a war that should have been a cake walk. His leadership of the military borders on criminal negligence. He single-handedly dismembered the Powell Doctrine (massive and overwhelming force) by trying to fight a war on the cheap. He ignored the advice of his top officers (Shinseki, 300,000-400,000 troops) and he’s missed the call at every turn. Remember how this was all going to be over in a few weeks? How the Iraqis were going to greet us as liberators with flowers and chocolate? Or how about how the insurgents were in their last throes?
This guy hasn’t done anything right. He’s like a bull in a china shop. Heavy on the bull.
Rumsfeld has got to go.
Nathan,
Oh, maybe the strategic miscalculation as to how many troops would be required to pacify and occupy Iraq, and a total failure to consider any post-invasion planning.
Iraq is a disaster. Everyone knows it. The Army is very close to breaking. It seems to me that the Secretary of Defense bears responsibility, and should resign.
I’ll go even further: the entire invasion was a fantasy undertaking that NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED. Short of impeaching W., which hopefully can begin next year, I’ll be content to see the head roll of one of the chief architects of this fiasco: Donald Rumsfeld.
WASHINGTON – President Bush said Tuesday that American forces will remain in Iraq for years and it will be up to a future president to decide when to bring them all home. But defying critics and plunging polls, he declared, “I’m optimistic we’ll succeed. If not, I’d pull our troops out.”
The question is, Mr. President, at whose cost? American families?
There ya go, folks. He isn’t bringing them home. Not ever. Never intended to, I’m sure. His buddies couldn’t rake in all the $$$ if he did. I’m curious to see what happens in the polls now.
This guy is SICK!
Whatever happened to MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!?
Well said RD.
I wish this blog had been around 3 years ago. If it were there would be an archive of me posting that this is a war designed never to be won. And today the other shoe dropped to prove it.
Ben,
The mission for which that banner was hanging for was accomplished.
JR,
What is winning for you? When the troops come home?
I posted that 3 years ago many of us knew this was a war that could not be won.
I don’t have any conditions for “victory” because there cannot ever be one. There was never meant to be.
‘Winning’ would be a peaceful, free, and democratic Iraq: just like the one that was promised.
J R is absolutely right: such a state of affairs is neither possible, nor was ever intended to be.
With that announcement today, Bush has absolutely jumped the shark. He’s out of his fucking mind.
Oh and as to the mission accomplished. I’ll give you your take on the banner Nathan. While speaking under that banner, wasn’t there something bush said about hostilities in Iraq ending?
You tell me JR, what was it Bush said?
Yeah C F That presser today makes absolutely no sense! He attacked the press?? The only thing I can figure is he is DELIBERATELY distancing himself from the party to save GOP control…falling on his sword. But I don’t think so.
He is either criminally stupid or………heck I don’t know.
J R,
Indeed. Hell froze over today when W actually took a question from Helen Thomas. I feel like the sky is going to crack.
Nathan, Why don’t you actually bring something to the table once in a while other than confrontation and questions?Do you honestly believe we’ll be successful in Iraq? How are we going to do it? What do you honestly think the future will be in Iraq?
I loved it when Helen confronted him today, of course all he could do was respond with the same old rhetoric.
Nathan, you strike me as a smart kid. All things considered, what do you think the outcome will be? Do you REALLY think we’re going to leave Iraq a happy healthy democracy? I’m betting we leave a ruined country governed by a theocracy that hates our guts.
What mission do you think was accomplished? The war obviously isn’t over. Osama hasn’t been brought to justice. The world isn’t a safer place.
For Iraqis, we’ve replaced one form of tyranny with another. Foriegn soldiers kicking down doors in the middle of the night dragging family members away. That sounds like something out of a bad cold war novel. How can we say Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam?
Reguardless, Bush is finished. And Iraq is the major reason.
Christ Damoon! You type faster than I do. And you stole my thunder.
Helen Thomas is the DEAN of the white house press corp. Since REAGAN, she has always been given the courtesy of asking the first question of the president.
Today, when shrub called on her, it was the first time he let her ask a question in FOUR YEARS!! And then he had a pissing match with her without answering the question!
What is shrub afraid of from a little old lady like helen? I mean, if he hasnt done anything wrong, he has nothing to worry about, right?
They ALL need to go and the sooner the better. We are stuck with them for the next 3 years but come November, we can at least begin to stop the damage by removing the GOP from the House and Senate.
Why Rumsfeld ain’t going anywhere:http://www.fp-es.org/images/artwork_8th_19_3.jpg
What was Rhonda saying earlier about “President Cheney”?
I need to catch that presser later on Cspan. I missed it. I am hearing that bush is denying saying things that they have him on tape as earlier saying.
XXX, Ha! We we’re on the same wave length, I guess you just have to be quicker on the keys to beat me to the punch!
“A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors or support terrorism,” says Rumsfilled.
Why not?
A free and stable America attacked Mexico and stole half its land in 1846. A free and stable America under McKinley attacked Cuba and kicked out Spain so United Fruit could exploit its resources, and enjoyed that “splendid little war” so much we also decided to annex the Philippines even though we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.
A free and stable America under Nixon secretly widened the Vietnam war by bombing Cambodia. A free and stable America invaded Grenada, funded death squads in El Salvador, funded the contras in Nicaragua, and propped up a host of right-wing fascist states like Pinochet’s and Somoza’s and Noriega’s as long as they were friendly to our corporate colonialism.
Then of course there’s the “pre-emptive strike” against absolutely no threat that we’re all living through now under Worst President Possible.
Looks to me like having a free and stable democracy is absolutely no guarantee of much of anything when it comes to maintaining world peace.
This just in, CIA had a “secret source” in Saddam’s gov’t that told them the TRUTH: no nuclear weapons, no biological weapons, no tie to terrorism, no threat to the US.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856
Too bad President Cuckoo-Bananas really, really wanted the oil . . .
Here is a major problem. The Constitution designates the President to be Commander in Chief of the military.
The founders were thinking of George Washington, who was a veteran warrior. They never envisioned draft-dodgers (e.g. Clinton, Bush) commanding our armed services.
Our senior military officers are not given a voice. They must follow the orders of their CIC, and express their opinions in private, until they retire. They’re experts in warfare. It isn’t enough to take their positions under advisement, which is to say overrule them, unless the CIC has been on the battlefield, and knows from personal experience what war is like. It is hell. So you better have good, correct, reasons for going into it. Making up wavy-gravy stories of non-existent WMD’s and Saddam’s involvement with al-Qaeda terrorists are not good, correct, reasons.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney avoided the draft. They did not want to put themselves in harm’s way. Don Rumsfeld didn’t go into battle. They are not the CIC leadership that the Constitution envisioned. Not even close.
As usual well said Heartlander. We don’t hear from you enough.
I’ll say again. Rumsfeld offered his resignation twice. bush refused it. So again the continuing debacle that is this war rests with bush and cheney and the entire administration.
They all should go.
Heartlander, how dare you say this:
“Making up wavy-gravy stories of non-existent WMD’s and Saddam’s involvement with al-Qaeda terrorists”
I’m going to say this as shrub, using my best Bevis and Butthead voice…
” I am CORNHOLEIO! Are you threatening me? Are you calling me a liar? Do not forget, I am the great CORNHOLEIO!!!!”
heheh. Do you see black helecopters heading your way, heartlander?
Damoon,
“Why don’t you actually bring something to the table once in a while other than confrontation and questions?”
Isn’t that all the democrats bring to the table…constant questioning of the President and confrontation?
”Do you honestly believe we’ll be successful in Iraq?”
I think so, Yes.
“How are we going to do it?”
I don’t know the exact details forgive me. I do know that Saddam is gone and we are helping the Iraqi people to rebuild a stable government now.
“What do you honestly think the future will be in Iraq?”
It is kind of uncharted water helping a Middle Eastern dictatorship turn into some kind of democratic state. I would like to think that they would become a more economically centered democracy.
XXX,
“What mission do you think was accomplished?”
The defeat of Saddam militarily.
So tell me all you anti-rumsfield, bush is the devil, I hate this administration people:
What is your solution to Iraq? What exactly is it that you think should be done right now at this very moment to make everything better?
Well Nathan,
First we would have to start with an actual desire to end the war. bush clearly has no such desire and never did. It is the nice little distraction it was supposed to be to hide the domestic damage his administration is doing. It has the side benefit of making a lot of money for some pals of his.
But ok let’s forget all that.
There can be no painless end to this war (that was the whole idea)
The best course would be as DD suggested upthread. Allow Iraq to split into the 3 nations it really is. Guide the process (use the CIA to choose the leaders) guarantee the borders of the 3 new nations not from each other but from neighbor nations. Give a deadline and get out.
Bloody aftermath? Yup. But THEIR bloody aftermath not ours. Ideal outcome? Hardly. But Colin Powel did warn bush that if he broke Iraq he would own it. bush shows no sign of “owning” it beyond his term in office. Then he will happily abandon his mess to others to clean up. So I say save the blood and treasure and let Iraq sort out Sunniland, kurdistan, and Shiaville.
Good post JR. But…
Implementing your ideas would cut short the haliburton relief act. And war daddy would have to admit he made a mistake.
But the good news for bushco would be higher oil prices!
I dont see the devil lacing up his ice skates yet!
Well nathan, I dont know if JR is a democrat, but he certainly had a more detailed plan than you do. And we all know the devil is in the details, so how about you take a shot at it nathan.
“It is kind of uncharted water helping a Middle Eastern dictatorship turn into some kind of democratic state.”
“some kind” of democratic state? How many kinds of democratic states are there? Isnt there only one, and that is where they have free elections for leadership and then form a government? I see the u.s. had elections, (thank you diebold) but no one is forming a government, even with u.s. military help :)
Hehe, uncharted waters? Really? Arent those the same waters we just tried to navigate with the palestinians? And they elected Hamas.
There is a chart for these waters nathan. Bushco just doesnt like where the charted waters lead. So he is rudderless, and we are adrift with him at the helm.
Wait..dont worry! I see an iceberg ahead. Quick, start rearranging the deck chairs. Commander codpiece is on his way!
I like Donald Rumsfeld.
Nathan – while it is hard to outline a plan in detail as the targets are moving one thing is clear: WE MUST HAVE COMPETANT LEADERS! Bush et.al. have made a horrible mess as they were warned woulf happen. They have shown absolutely ZERO foresight in this. They knew or should have known this thing would degenerate into disaster. BUT, they were too busy making uplies to justify their invasion to think about the future.
Get new leadership in place and then follow something like JR’s plan above.
I’m still waiting for Nathan’s plan.
I will guess it is “stay the course” If so he can out line it.
That COULD work. But it will take at least 2 generations. That’s about 40 years. America has had enough after 3. So there is gonna havta be some kind of alternative.
Nathan, My suggestion would be to force the Iraqis to form a government, declare victory, and get the hell out. I just don’t se any better alternative. This war has been so incredably botched from the beginning that no matter what we do at this point, the whole rotten mess is going to come crashing down sooner or later. It would probably be better for us if we weren’t there when it happens.
Nathan, I saw what happened at the embassy in Siagon. I don’t want to see a replay in the Green Zone. At this point, we need to figure out how to save face (and save the troops).
WHY DOES NATHAN NEVER ANSWER QUESTIONS OR DO RESEARCH?