Andrew Sullivan On Iraq War Management
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, War
Both Bremer and Powell - let’s call them the Sanity Chorus - were insistent that an occupation that couldn’t even control Baghdad was woefully under-manned. Powell emerges as a real hawk in arguing to take out Moqtada al-Sadr. Rumsfeld seems absolutely indifferent to reality on the ground, contemptuously unresponsive to Bremer, and eager to downsize the mission at every moment. The evidence is beginning to mount, it seems to me, that Rumsfeld ran this war. His arrogance, pig-headedness, ideological fixations, and sheer incompetence are what have led us into our current knife-edge position, and are indirectly responsible for the deaths of the 30,000 innocent civilians who died because the occupying power decided - yes, consciously decided - to let mayhem rule. In this, Bush is responsible. He appointed Rumsfeld. And he has kept him on. I don’t see how anyone can have much confidence in war-management until he is removed.
And yet we Dean Esmay saying in our comments section that he’s the best Secretary of Defense in his lifetime? Of course, all is opinion, but I’d certainly like an explanation exactly how somebody could view Rumsfeld as so incredible? By what measure?
This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I’ve been saying this for well over a year. A lot of people have. At firts we were just lonely voices, but now people like Bremer — a guy in a position to know — are telling the same story. There will be more.
It is now patently obvious, and a person has to be in deep denial, to to escape the conclusion that Rumsfeld has been a disaster in Iraq. Dean was an early supporter of Rumsfeld and is simply indifferent to facts.
January 13th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
See, this is what I feared from the very beginning. We would underestimate everything because we are the mighty American military and things would descend into some sort of middle-ground chaos where things aren’t SO bad you can say they’re lost, but not so good you can’t say everything’s fine. And then we’d try to pull out because of political reasons before the job is done.
In any event, Rumsfeld should go. That’s seems so apparent to me, it’s painful.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I’m 3/4 thru reading “Cobra II”the inside story of the invasion and occupation of iraq by gordon &trainor. Rumsfeld,Franks,Bush et al come off badly while Powell & the generals were shouted down.We are now paying the price for empire expansion& our mistaken idea that democracy should be imposed on other countries. This Iraq invasion & occupation will be with us for a long time,sorry to say. Buy or rent Cobra II,time will spent.