Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
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disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
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The ressignation of Donald Rumsfeld doesn't change the problem of a President who is incompetent and malevolent, nor is it likely to bring about a significant change in the Iraq policy.
The forced resignation of Donald Rumsfeld the day after the midterm
elections says as much about the Secretary of Defense as it does about
the President of the
United States.
Almost seven months before the elections, six retired generals, including two who commanded divisions in
Iraq, called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. In response, President Bush said that Rumsfeld was “doing a fine job.”
Two months before the midterm elections, Josh Bolten, the President’s
chief of staff, told the Democratic leadership, who had demanded
Rumsfeld’s resignation, “We strongly disagree.” By the President’s
direction, he told the opposition party that Rumsfeld “is an honorable
and able public servant [who] retains the full confidence of the
President.”
One week before the midterm elections, President Bush said that
Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney “are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly
support them.” Lying through his ever-present smirk, he said he planned
to keep Rumsfeld until the end of his term; with Cheney, a
constitutionally-elected politician, he had no choice. The only comment
the President hadn’t made the previous few weeks was, “Rummy, you’re
doing a heckuva job.”
In an unprecedented shift of editorial philosophy, the Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Times, and Air Force Times, private publications with a pro-military slant,all called for Rumsfeld’s resignation:
“One
rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush,
Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: ‘mission
accomplished,’ the insurgency is ‘in its last throes,’ and ‘back off,’
we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples. . . .
“Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the
troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has
failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame
for our failures in
Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.”
As the thunder of an impending Democratic victory began to emerge,
Republican candidates cut and ran from the
Bush–Cheney–Rumsfeld–Gonzales–Rice Neocon Coalition. The Republicans’
catharses were based not upon principle but upon their political
survival. In both TV and newspaper ads, many even refused to label
their party affiliation, hoping to sneak their re-election campaigns
past a naive electorate that they hoped would believe the Republican
Congress had nothing to do with the fiasco in Iraq nor the methodical
dismantling of Constitutional freedoms at home
Extensive exit polling by several organizations revealed that as many
as 60 percent of the electorate, by voting Democratic, had registered
protest votes to the leadership of President Bush and the war in Iraq.
Only one-third of the nation supported Cheney; the support for Rumsfeld
was only slightly better.
The day after the midterm elections, with both houses of Congress about
to be in Democratic control for the first time in 12 years, Donald
Rumsfeld resigned. And—surprise!—the replacement was standing next to the President and his soon-to-be former secretary of defense.
President Bush praised Rumsfeld as “one of
America’s most skilled and capable national security leaders . . . a
superb leader during a time of change [whose] service has made
America stronger, and made
America a safer
nation.” Because of him, said President Bush, “the world is more
secure.” To the man who planned and executed the war in
Iraq, the President said, “You will be missed.”
This was said about a secretary of defense who with the President and
Vice-President lied to the people about the presence of weapons of mass
destruction in
Iraq and then made
up stories about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to al-Qaeda. This was a
secretary of defense who boldly told the world that the
United States planned to “shock and awe”
Iraq, who said he doubted
the war would last six months, and who isolated Gen. Eric Shinseki, the
Army’s chief of staff, who disagreed with his assessment of how many
troops would be needed in
Iraq. This was a
secretary of defense who was furious when he heard about what happened
at Abu Ghraib, but who had approved innumerable plans that paved the
road to torture. This was a secretary of defense who once said, “It’s
easier to get into something than get out of it,” but had no viable
plan for occupation nor did he tolerate senior military officers who
pushed for such a plan. This was a secretary of defense who had
vigorous disagreements with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had
been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War.
This was a secretary of defense who cautioned that Americans must not
“divide the world into ‘them’ and ‘us,’” but like the rest of the
Neocon Cabal believed, “If you’re not with us, you’re for the
terrorists.”
But, this is also one of the brightest persons to have served in any
President’s cabinet, a man who brought much-needed change to the
Pentagon. His intelligence and arrogance were never greater than in how
he deftly handled the media. When inept reporters asked inane
questions, Rumsfeld shot right back at them, sometimes with sarcastic
humor, avoiding the political niceties that other cabinet officers were
burdened with. Soon, he began asking and then answering his own
questions. Almost everything in Rumsfeld’s past suggested
unprecedented success. He received both academic and military
scholarships to
Princeton. Upon graduation, he became a Navy
pilot, retiring as a captain after three years of active duty, followed
by almost 30 years in the Ready Reserve and Standby Reserves. He had
begun his public career as a Congressional administrative assistant,
and was elected four times to Congress as a Republican from
Illinois. His public service includes
serving as counselor to President Nixon, and as director of the Office
of Economic Opportunity and director of the Economic Stabilization
Program. Nixon appointed him NATO ambassador, but the President’s
resignation amid scandal led Rumsfeld to return to
Washington,
D.C., to become President Ford’s chief
of staff and, for two years, secretary of defense. Under President
Ford, he was the youngest secretary of defense; under President Bush,
he became the oldest person to serve in that position. After Jimmy
Carter was inaugurated president in 1977, Rumsfeld left government and
became one of the more successful business executives, earning honors
from the pharmaceutical industry, the Wall Street Transcript, and Financial World as the nation’s outstanding CEO.
George H.W. Bush had distrusted both Rumsfeld and Cheney; that was not
the case with Bush the Younger who understood a political reality—with
Dick Cheney came Donald Rumsfeld; they had worked together, understood
each other, and would be a formidable presence for the newly-elected
and untested president. They, along with some of Bush the Elder’s
confidantes, would have power, while the new president was in
presidential day care for much of his first term.
The six years Rumsfeld was with George W. Bush is how the nation will
remember the former “boy wonder.” But, it isn’t just Donald Rumsfeld
who should carry the burden of the failure of this Administration in
rushing into
Iraq and then being trapped in a quagmire they created.
President Bush frequently refers to himself as a wartime president,
embellishing the role of commander-in-chief. Josh Bolten told the
Democratic leadership that Rumsfeld “has pursued vigorously the
President’s vision for a transformed
U.S. military” and has “played a lead role in forging and implementing many of the policies” in
Iraq. The President
said that his Secretary of Defense “has been dedicated to his mission
[and] loyal to his President.” Donald Rumsfeld once said, “In the
execution of Presidential decisions, work to be true to his views, in
fact and tone.” He has done that. Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation won’t
solve the problems that his commander-in-chief created—either from
indifference or incompetence, from naïveté or malevolence.
The people have finally spoken —
“Bushie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”
[Walter Brasch’s current books are America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights, ‘Unacceptable’: The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina, and Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture. They are available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu, or through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]
Writings 
The ressignation of Donald Rumsfeld doesn't change the problem of a President who is incompetent and malevolent, nor is it likely to bring about a significant change in the Iraq policy.
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