Donald Rumsfeld: It's Time To Go
 

December 16 2004
Counterbias.com
Scott C. Smith
 

I’ve had enough of the “leadership” of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld: it’s time to step down.

The war in Iraq has gone poorly. Of course, the Bush administration doesn’t want anyone to know just how bad it is in Iraq, so they don’t talk about it much. 

On the ground, our forces, and our allies, discovered that some Iraqis were not particularly happy to have us there, and have engaged in a deadly guerilla war that has stretched on for months now, as insurgents attack us on a daily basis.

For some reason, the Department of Defense – and Donald Rumsfeld – failed to anticipate an Iraqi resistance. In fact, they were pretty sure we would be greeted as liberators. You know, that whole bit about how Iraqis were going to throw flowers at us? Well, that never happened. And for some reason, we didn’t plan for a scenario where we would be greeted as occupiers, which is the situation we now find ourselves in.

It’s pretty clear that Rumsfeld, President Bush, and everyone else involved thought the war in Iraq would be over quickly and painlessly. Why else would George W. Bush announce to the world on May 1, 2003, that “major combat operations” in Iraq had ended? When, in reality, the major combat was about to begin, and it would be ugly.

As the months progressed – and as it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq – the Bush administration had to come up with a new justification for our having attacked a sovereign nation, and of course terrorism is a good excuse.

I don’t know if the Iraqi insurgents watch CNN, or some other network, but it seems now that someone was watching on July 2, 2003, when Bush told reporters, of the Iraqi insurgents: “Anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice…there are some that feel like if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that is the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."

We’ve been getting hit hard nearly every day since Bush made those remarks.

Bad decisions have been made. Reserve and National Guard troops were sent to Iraq without the proper training to fight the insurgents. Logistical issues continue to be a problem. Early on were reports that some soldiers lacked body armor, and had to resort to having family members purchase the armor for them; ammunition was also scarce.

And while George W. Bush is the Commander in Chief, the one person most responsible for waging the war is Donald Rumsfeld. And some folks are not happy with his performance.

Senator John McCain is a man who knows something about war. In an interview with the Associated Press on December 13, McCain said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld for his handling of the war in Iraq. "I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops – linguists, special forces, civil affairs…there are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

Even Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf – the commander of U.S. forces during the first Persian Gulf war in 1991 – has been critical of Rumsfeld. On December 13, Schwarzkopf appeared on the MSNBC program Hardball with Chris Matthews. Referring to Rumsfeld’s response to a soldier in Kuwait who had asked the Secretary why his unit had to scrounge through landfills for equipment (the question was asked on December 9; Rumsfeld answer was, in part, “You go to war with the Army you have…not the Army you might want or wish to have”), Schwarzkopf said, “(But) they deserve every bit of protection that we can give them. Absolutely. And I was very, very disappointed...let me put it stronger, I was angry about the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army. I mean, as if he as the secretary of defense didn't have anything to do with the Army, if the Army was over there doing it themselves screwing up."

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, appearing on the CNN program Late Edition soon after Rumsfeld gave his response to the soldier, said, “That soldier and those men and women (in uniform) deserved a far better answer from their secretary of defense than a flippant comment. I wonder what the parents of the men and women over there (in Iraq), sons and daughters who are fighting, I do not think that they appreciated that answer (from Rumsfeld).”

Elections will be held in Iraq on Jan. 30, 2005. Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation would be the best conclusion to that election.

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