Defense secretary laments Abu Ghraib in farewell

CNN ^ | December 8, 2006 | CNN

[indcons]

Leaving office, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld bade a sometimes emotional farewell Friday, saying the single worst day of his nearly six years there was when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq.

Rumsfeld choked up briefly while recalling a woman in Alaska giving him a bracelet last August as a reminder of the sacrifices by soldiers of the Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade, whose yearlong tour in Iraq was extended by four months to help try to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Showing it still on his wrist, Rumsfeld recalled that he told the woman he would wear the green bracelet until the 172nd came home.

He spoke at length about his concern that the United States not let Iraq and Afghanistan collapse.

"We have every chance in the world of succeeding in both those countries, but only if we have the patience and only if we have the staying power," he said. Asked about the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's recommendations for a change in approach to the Iraq war, Rumsfeld said none of the suggestions were new.

[samadams2000]

Leave it to liberals to reduce a great mans dossier to a panty wearing enemy incident.

[BW2221]

2,900 American military have been killed in Iraq and Rumsfeld considers Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse the "worst day"? Some "insurgent" having women's panties on his head is worse than days when a dozen of our men and women were killed?

With this kind of thinking, is it any wonder we have the mess we have?

[John W]

When I saw this piece earlier today I thought for certain he was going to say 9/11.When even Rummy goes pc, we're screwed.

[BW2221]

I saw him actually make this statement on the news tonight and couldn't believe what he was saying.

I guess he heard Bush refer to Islam as the "religion of peace" so many times, he started to believe it himself.

[allen08gop]

He was referring to the massive BS that came out of that fiasco by a few stupid soldiers had far reaching negative strategic effects and he clearly stated that today.

[John W]

Whatever.If he really considers that his worst day in the job, he should retire.

[allen08gop]

The attack on 9/11 was from an outside force. Abu was done by soldiers of the US. That's a betrayal of trust for any commander. Compound that he's is far from stupid and he had see the resulting BS a mile away.

The damage from Abu was greater in terms of the world's perception of us. It turned a lot of the world's press against us not to mention our own.

[Freee-dame]

It turned a lot of the world's press against us not to mention our own.

Most of the MSM press was already against us. They just jumped on the Abu Ghraib incident to bash the administration and the war effort. Rumsfeld could probably see the terrible PR that was going to result from it as soon as it happened. Of course, the fact that it was only one weekend (maybe only one night) and not an ongoing pattern of behavior, that the soldiers in question had already been sent back to the US for disciplinary action and that the Army was already investigating got almost no publicity. The NYT etc. is so disgusting.

"You are either with us or you are with the terrorists" should have been restated over and over. Instead, it got corrupted into "you are either with us or against us" which does not say the same thing.

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

["Asked about the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's recommendations for a change in approach to the Iraq war, Rumsfeld said none of the suggestions were new."]

And Rumsfeld is correct. Look, all the ISG report is about is to create a "pivot point" for the Bush administration.

That's how Washington works.