Rumsfeld Following His Star To Perdition

Maybe it was sunspots or some cosmic disturbance, but GW Bush and his loyal pet SEC DEF Rumsfeld broke ranks ever so slightly on the Iraq War. During a press conference Bush admitted he made some rhetorical mistakes, while Rumsfeld an hour later on CNN Larry King denied any kind of mistakes -- for him it was stay the course, damned them Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and full speed ahead.

Bush apologized for his BRING EM ON and WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE statements -- his BRING EM ON had to be the dumbest thing as it was incitement of the enemy -- it is the kind of thing no amount of contrition can undo -- DEAD or ALIVE for Bin Laden, was hokey but okay with me and I would not have apologized for that. There was no apology for MISSION ACCOMPLISHED which defined Bush's Iraq war -- it demonstrated that Bush did not have a grasp of the war. Since then, every time an American serviceman dies or is horribly wounded, the country is reminded of the President's foolishness. Since Bush made the announcement on May Day three years ago, this Left Wing holiday will be used as the occasion to hoist him on a petard with great fanfare until the war is finally ended.

Our President did say, at the co-press conference with Blair, when asked what he will miss about Blair the most, that it would be Blair's red tie -- red, a socialist color as well as pro Bush red state -- stay tuned for looney tunes -- Bush is soon to meet Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Worked for Rumsfeld in Office of Secretary of Defense when he was Sec Def under President Ford -- that was over 20 years ago -- his reputation then as it is now was as an intellectual lightweight. His strong suit then was fierce loyalty to the president and now with a different president, that has not changed either. I am struck by Rumsfeld's physical stature -- in that in those 20 plus years since I first saw him to now, he has aged well. Maybe it is good TV makeup. Or maybe, like Dorian Grey who made a pact with the devil -- his distorted portrait grotesquely reflecting his evil is hidden somewhere in a Pentagon mop closet behind a snack bar -- while his visage remains unperturbed.

Rumsfeld was in the past, a competent bureaucrat. My sense is that he became unglued with 9/11, especially with the attack on the Pentagon that inflicted immediate destruction and death on his employees right in front of his nose. His response was the invasion of Afghanistan -- Taliban's back was quickly broken, but Bin Laden escaped. Sometimes missed is also Rumsfeld's incompetent role in the escape of number one man in the Taliban, Omar. Marines were prepared to arrest him in Kandahar, but Karzai intervened and begged Rumsfeld to allow him to take the chieftain's surrender personally. Rumsfeld foolishly agreed ... Omar fled and still is on the loose. This affinity for trusting local tribes to solve his military problems was evident again when he depended on native units to block Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora -- this Rumsfeld fixation on economy of force and force multipliers haunts him today in the pending defeat of US forces in Iraq.

Invasion of Iraq was a strategic and military blunder of the first rank. Bad planning, faith based intelligence, insufficient forces -- no exit strategy -- massive incompetence with post war occupation under Department of Defense Coalition government run by Bremmer -- it is now obvious that Rumsfeld had no idea what he was doing. To complicate the role of US forces in the occupation was Abu Gharib, a pointless slaughter of Iraqis at Fallujah, and now the atrocities by the Marines at Haditha -- still no effective Iraqi central government despite stage managing elections by the Bush administration.

The US military generals who have come out against Rumsfeld's management of the Iraqi war are roughly in two categories -- those who retired before the war and those who retired once the war began. Generals Odium and Zinni are in the first category -- Generals Newbold, Eaton, Batiste and others are in the second. Except for Zinni, the other generals refuse to come to grips with why the US went to war -- Zinni said that the pro Israeli neoconservatives were the driving force behind the Iraqi war -- GEN Newbold wrote that the war was driven by zealots and made no sense.

Watched an interview of GEN Batiste on Chris Matthews' HARDBALL -- Batiste was Deputy Sec Def Wolfowitz's military assistant before he commanded a division in Iraq -- Iraq war is conceded to be Wolfowitz's war -- Israeli newspaper JERUSALEM POST anointed Mr. Wolfowitz MAN of THE YEAR for promoting the war ... Matthews pressed Batiste on why the US went to war. Batiste's eyes kept rolling around in his head as he refused to answer the question -- but he managed to reveal that the Pentagon neocons never read the war plan -- implicit was that this group just wanted to go to war... Rumsfeld and Bush, to their everlasting shame, let this pro Israeli gang get away with it -- as far as Wolfowitz, he is now President of the World Bank where he is invited to do more mischief.

One former Pentagon staffer has been convicted of spying for Israel -- two members of the US Israeli Lobby are pending espionage charges connected with the Pentagon -- members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington connected to the case have been sent home.....

The Iranian president in a private letter to GWB thanked Bush for removing Saddam, so Bush now enjoys the gratitude of a member of his axis of evil.

With the so called revolt of the generals, Rumsfeld cannot resign -- if he departs the Pentagon, it would explode as the corruption and the real story on the Iraqi war would become apparent -- Rumsfeld has to keep his finger in the dike.

When Rumsfeld's portrait is finally displayed in the Pentagon with the other past SecDefs, it should be displayed upside down as a sign of distress. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret