You taking Rummy off of your Christmas card list?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

He hasn't been on the xmas list for several DoD folks, current and former.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Aside from being a civilian that has no clue how to run a war it's well documented that he has bucked many seasoned Generals including Colon Powell. Word around the camp fire is that he was was basically ignored by planners so he decided to try his doctrine at the expense of American lives and taxpayers using "informational warfare" and a bunch of other hocus pocus. This new so called doctrine is also called the bush-rumsfeld doctrine and in relys on excellent intelligence and a chit load of smart bombs which were in great shortage after Afghanistan. If his arrogance hadn't got the best of him it might have worked, in Afghanistan a crew of twelve Army Special Forces took most of Afghanistan with the help of recruited locals and Air Force combat air controllers, half of the group was killed due to an error on the combat controllers part he accidentally gave the bomber his own GPS coordinates.

I know this is way off and deep but you anti war pendents are beating the wrong drum. If you would start beating the logical non-rhetorical drum you would likey find some if not most of the RNC's greatest supporters standing by your side because I know that I'm not alone. I've been in the situation that our soldiers are in and it downright sucks.

I'm surprised that I haven't heard much in the media about Rumsfeld's recent campaign to distance himself from the decision to invade Iraq. The Washington Post had a long article two weeks ago that was all about Rumsfeld saying the war wasn't his idea. When pressed on the issue he says he fully supports the President's decision, but he also makes it clear that it wasn't his idea.

One reason for our current mess is that Rumsfeld convinced himself and many others that he is so brilliant, he doesn't need to listen to anyone. It's remarkable that someone who has been so wrong on so many important issues could remain so smug and condescending.

He is the reason for the mess, I will never forget his dumbass Humvee armor comment and I really remember the people trying to defend his comment. Civilians had/have no idea what it's like to patrol the streets of an unfriendly city for the sole purpose of drawing fire. A guy would think that at the bare minimum the guy sending them into the fire could provide adequate protection, it seems funny that Rumsfeld rode around Iraq in a "bomb bus" that withstand a Nuke while he put troops in paper thing trucks.

He's an ass plain and simple.

A lot of my opposition to the current scene stems from the poor logic of it. In post war Germany and Japan, there were very few American deaths. I could not buy all the talk about Iraq being democratized and made an American ally the way Japan was. I had a heavy forboding that the 'forged in some hot Islamic desert furnace' hatred of Christians and America on top of resentment in general at Anglo colonial abuses would yield a steady supply of snipers in post war Iraq.

One reason I harp on Vittnam is that mistakes like that can end empires. We absorbed the blow pretty well cause oil was way plentiful and cheap and we had unprecedented wealth. We stay in Iraq another 10-12 years the way Rice and Rummy are talking about, might be a different story. We take ourselves and perpetual prosperity way too much for granted IMO.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

FWIW, I knew MedMech was not real fond of Rummy.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Uh, you channeled his essence for how long before you revealed this insight?

B

Careful Bot, you're flailing! Not too graceful. A martini or two too many, perhaps.

I've read Med's feelings on Rummy about 4 or 5 times before today.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Would that be the same British intelligence who were trying hard to cover their backside, so hard that they relied on a document which, though I’ve not seen it, is reputed to be a crude, crude forgery?

As Wilson and the General quoted below have pointed out many times, uranium mining in Niger is/was tightly controlled by a French consortium which had absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose in supplying uranium to Saddam. I think I heard this general on NOW or Frontlines, though I’m not sure. The topic was the same and the guy was way credible. I’ll have to look for it in my videos.

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2004/07/yellowcake-and-yellow-journalism.html

Republicans harp on Wilson yet never discuss Marine Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr., a four-star general who traveled to Niger and confirmed Wilson's findings. Before we let the propagandists toss certain key facts down the memory hole, re-read this Washington Post story published exactly one year ago:

In an interview, Fulford said he came away "assured" that the supply of "yellowcake" was kept secure by a French consortium. Both Fulford, then deputy commander of the U.S. European Command and his commander, Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, said the issue did not surface again, although they were both routinely briefed on weapons proliferation in Africa. "I was convinced it was not an issue," Fulford said.

Fulford was asked by the U.S. ambassador to Niger, BarbroOwens-Kirkpatrick, to join her at the meeting with Niger's President Mamadou Tandja on Feb. 24, 2002. "I was asked to impress upon the president the importance that the yellowcake in Niger be under control," Fulford said. "I did that. He assured me. He said the mining operations were handled through a French consortium" and therefore out of the Niger government's control. Owens-Kirkpatrick, reached by phone, declined to comment.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

OK, dude.

1) Iraq did indeed go to Niger in the late 90's with the intent to expand commercial relations. The PM of Niger told Wilson that he took this to mean he wanted to buy Uranium. Niger turned him down. This, actually, is in Wilson's report to the CIA. The british intelligence files report that Saddam did go to Niger to try and buy Uranium. This information matches Wilson's report. In 02 after hearing reports that Iraq had tried to buy Uranium Cheney asked the CIA to check it out (a prudent move, don't you think). Wilson's wife persueded them to send Wilson in Feb 2002. The prior british reports from the late 90's that Wilson agreed with stating that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger had nothing to do with the forgeries.
In 2003 Wilson begins to back away from the proposed uranium purchase claim. In early 2002 newspapers began reporting that Wilson "knew" the british documents were forgeries. The US government didn't recieve the forged papers until late 2002. During the pre-war intelligence commitee hearing when questioned about his statements regarding the "forged" documents Wilson claimed that he "misspoke".

BTW, The british goverment continues, to this day, to stand behind the intelligence report that Bush based his 2003 SOTU address on. That Hussein did, in fact, try to buy uranium from Niger.

article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

relevent bits:
" Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address. "
" The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger. "

Every intelligence agency in the world was convinced Hussein had tried to buy uranium because he had. Niger is not the only country in Africa that sells it, nor is it the only country in the world that makes it. How many other markets do you think exist for uranium? How much do you think he could buy with his oil for food profits? Do you think we'd detect an amount of bought uranium better or worse than we'd detect a facility which makes the stuff?

And finally from the Senate committee on intelligence failure, final conclusion:

Conclusion 26. To date, the Intelligence Community has not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa as stated in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Likewise, neither the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) nor the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which both published assessments on possible Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium, have ever published assessments outside of their agencies which correct their previous positions.

Feel free to read the report yourself.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

FYI, if you look through the long history of MedMech, his Rumsfeld pewrspective predated Iraq. His perspective comes from connections to career military and other gov folks.

It is a POV with which I am in partial disagreement, though not about Iraq, per se.

Rumsfeld took the slow evolution of the military, especially the Army and USAF that has been ongoing since Vietnam, and accelerated it greatly. With the USAF he has forced them to a greater tactical relationship with ground forces. He has forced integration of USAF officers and NCO's into front line (and special forces) to force greater coordination. That has worked stunningly well. In Vietnam in often took over a day for the USAF to respond to Army requests for ground support. In Iraq and Afghanistan they can project hellish, accurate response in minutes to precisely where ground forces need force applied.

Rumsfeld is also forcing all of the services to integrate more seamlessly. This is especially evident in the special operations command. In special operations Rumsfeld has tremendously increased capability and manpower.

Rumsfeld has forced retirement on officers who stand in his way. Most of the time that's a good thing. Remember that ours is a civil, not military government. If the military doesn't like civilian leadership then retirement is a great opportunity for them.

Sometimes forcing change through the Pentagon has resulted in dumb or bad things. Whenever the gov does something dumb or bad, people get hurt. When the DoD does dumb or bad things, people die. Those bad and dumb things accrue to the civilian leadership more than the military. That would be Rumsfeld.

B

B, Powell deserves the credit for the items that you explained. Rumsfeld got the funding and got the approval from congress to get it. The CIVILIAN DoD has no business meddling with planning...........none. Forcing seasoned Generals out because they publicly disagreed with his "plan" now how many violations does that constitute. Powell is the new Grand Puba of SF not Rumsfeld, in fact Rumsfeld isn't helping SF at this point. He's the one that pushed for enlistee's to sign up directly for SF or Ranger duty/training it used to be earned.

He's a F--- beligerant A-- and his policies are costing lives. His time is up and he needs to go, do you really believe a person should be allowed to spend their entire life developing the power that he has. I don't think anyone will doubt that he tells W what to do.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030407fa_fact1

It comes from the New yorker but its well researched.

Well-written article. I actually read part of it shortly after it was published but got distracted to other things. Hersch does his homework. What I don't like about his method is that it comes with a point of view. He assumes a certain perspective and sets about to prove it. The danger in doing that is through discarding, discounting or misinterpreting information taht does not conform to the expected point of view. It happens all the time in science, too. It is not intentional, necessarily. In Hersch's case I doubt he would ever intentionally misuse information to support his particular point of view.

What Hersch fails to acknowledge, IMO, is that the military must be subservient to the civilian leadership. The civilians set policy and the military acts on it. If the military doesn't like a policy it is their duty to so inform the leadership. If civilian leadership persists in opposition to the military, then the officer has a chocie to make--to shut-up and follow orders or retire. Once retired, the officer can speak as a private citizen so long as classified info is not jeopardized. That is as it should be.

The worst situation is when an officer thinks that the civilian leadership is dangerously wrong, but still within constitutional and legal bounds.

What should he do?

1. Shut-up and follow orders;
2. Retire and shut-up;
3. Retire and go public;
4. Shut-up and undermine civilian leadership from within.

Bot