Rummy just told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that he didn’t advocate the invasion of Iraq. However, he agreed with it. Now he’s denying torture; “anything that was done that was not humane has been prosecuted.” He says the President “from the outset” required humane treatment. He’s tap dancing around Bush’s threatened veto of the McCain Amendment.
I can’t stand it.
.. a fatherless child.
Did someone drive him directly back to his bunker? Maybe he will stay there until spring.
Rumsfeld’s one-man media blitz yesterday was…in a word, pathetic. In addition to distancing himself from every major decision in this war, when Stephanopoulos asked him what conditions would have to be in place to draw down troops, he forcefully interrupted the question to say, “Well, George, let me tell you what they ARE..” I thought, ahh, finally we are going to get a substantive and specific answer to what these clowns have in mind…Rumsfeld’s answer? (paraphrase)…”we have people in Iraq working on setting those conditions right now…
The audacity of him making the rounds of shows with absolutely nothing to say, not even a better goddam SPIN!!, much less a clue or a plan as to what would constitute “winning” or “mission (really) accomplished”. Like Krugman and Murtha, I believe there will be siginificant drawdowns before Nov 2006 elections, but at the rate the Administration is going, they won’t even be able to get political credit for this because they have not set or communicated any benchmarks in place.
I didn’t take it as spin, for some reason. I mean, Colin Powell also said that he was not asked whether to invade Iraq.
If we suppose (for a moment) that these guys are telling the truth, that means that the President of the United States did not ask the opinion of either the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense when he decided to go to war. He just told them, and left it up to them to figure out the details.
Now that sounds just like something Bush would do, doesn’t it? Perhaps in concert with his vice-president, who told him what to say and told him how great all this would turn out to be, Bush (who by many accounts had decided to go to war in Iraq before he ever got elected) just made up his mind and said, “Do it.”
With predictable results.
Agreed. Rumsfeld’s interview was odd, to say the least. I have a similar entry over at JABBS. I’d welcome your feedback.
There’s a point during the interview when Rummie
teeters on the tightrope. Even the King of Horseshit
can’t weave a smokescreen sometimes.
This is so bizarre, all the King’s top wardogs
saying they didn’t support the war.
Meanwhile Bush is unavoidable for comment.
These are some adroit criminals for sure.
May they hang in the wind.