Resign, Rumsfeld

Posted by Freddie on September 18, 2006 under Uncategorized |

Since Republicans have made clear that they will not allow Americans to have an open, honest debate about how best to proceed with regard to the war in Iraq, it is time for Americans to respond to the one piece of actionable intelligence at our disposal: that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has failed in his job.

The war in Iraq is still simmering with a recently increased commitment of about 140,000 American troops to the pot, and hatchetman Dick Cheney is out to protect Teflon Don by claiming that anyone who opposes president Bush’s Iraq policies is validating terrorists. And previously, calls for consideration of alternative strategies by Democrats have been met by cute and insulting soundbite phrases by Republican congressional leaders as directed by Rove and the RNC. So, yes, Rumsfeld is but a representative of wider foreign policy failures for which his superiors, namely Bush and Cheney, as well as Republican congressional leadership, should be held accountable. But Rumsfeld’s job description includes formulation of general defense policy, and in execution of that he has failed.

Legitimate calls for the resignation of Rumsfeld began in earnest shortly after revelations of the behavior of American troops involving torture and humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison. They reached a crescendo when publications as esteemed as The Economist began echoing these calls. In the case of The Economist, by running a somewhat infamous picture of one of the notable detainee photographs under a cover story headline from May 6th, 2004 of “Resign, Rumsfeld” (subscription required).

I choose The Economist as my primary example because it is a respected, non-American, non-partisan publication that covers world economic and political news and that usually has observational rather than intentional cover stories.

Anyway, soon enough, somehow, the Abu Ghraib scandal died down without ever reaching the logical conclusion of a resignation of a high-ranking military official or civilian cabinet officer, under whose alleged management the abuses occurred. Instead, the media and the world were handed the prosecutions of a few low-ranking soldiers and, perhaps more important, ongoing chaos in Iraq.

Fast forward two years, and The Economist (an endorser of Bush over Gore in 2000, then, reluctantly, Kerry over Bush in 2004) renews their call (subscription required), indicating renewed relevance alongside new evidence:

His biggest mistake—the fons et origo of all the others—was to try to fight the war with too few troops. His second-biggest was to make no proper provision for restoring order afterwards. But there is no shortage of other mistakes. Mr Rumsfeld misread the intelligence in the build-up to the war, and much of it was simply wrong in any case. He failed to plan for the occupation. He ignored the growing insurgency. He disbanded the Iraqi army, scattering 300,000 armed and unemployed men into the population. The more interesting question is why he messed up so comprehensively.

And now we’re hearing NATO estimates that tamping down the new grease fire of the Taliban in Afghanistan could take as long as 3-5 years. Hang on: isn’t this the same Taliban we already toppled 5 years ago?! Of course, the congressional report commenting on this scenario blames European allies, but we’re the ones with 1000% more troops in Iraq than in the old home turf of al-Qaeda.

I know that I’m echoing zeitgeist now brought twice to the fore by The Economist and now captured by a letter from leading Democrats to the president. And I realize that some critics of the administration think focusing on Rumsfeld is a distraction. But if we will not be allowed, as citizens, to have an informed debate as to how to treat the symptoms of the festering in our military excursions, then I feel compelled to state clearly my hope that we might at least treat one of the root causes.