Rumsfeld's Status Taken Down a Notch(barf alert)

Washington Post ^ | 08/25/04 | Thomas E. Ricks

[Pikamax]

Rumsfeld's Status Taken Down a Notch

By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page A01

Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.

A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal.

In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation.

But the report does not appear to threaten Rumsfeld's position as defense secretary, especially because all four panel members emphatically rejected the idea of calling for his resignation yesterday at a Pentagon news conference to release their conclusions.

The panel's findings do, however, provide new support for two central criticisms of the Rumsfeld team's approach in Iraq last year: that the invasion plan called for too few troops, half as many as were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and that the Pentagon failed to plan smartly for occupying the country after the United States defeated the Iraqi military.

[TBarnett34]

*yawn* Gotta love the unbiased (com)Post.

[Chode]

i guess that explains why it only happened on ONE SHIFT in ONE WING at ONE PRISON then don't it???

[Belisaurius]

the Post isn't that bad. At least they mentioned that the board emphatically rejected then idea that Rumsfeld should resign.

The Washington Post you read with a jaundiced eye. The NY Times you read like it's a 1934 edition of Pravda.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Print out and wear as a Campaign Button or go HERE to print.

[SpinyNorman]

Wanna bet Ricks wouldn't have the stones to say that to Rumsfeld's face?

[dts32041]

bfl