Posted on 10/01/2006 11:36:31 PM PDT by MadIvan
The political fallout over claims that the Bush administration was riven by infighting over the Iraq war deepened yesterday when the president's former chief of staff confirmed that he twice sought to sack Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.
Andrew Card said George W Bush rebuffed his and others' demands to sideline Mr Rumsfeld, who had been accused of mishandling post-war security. The confirmation yesterday triggered talk in Washington that alternative candidates were being sounded out to lead the Pentagon.
The latest bout of speculation began with claims in a new book, State of Denial, by the Watergate journalist Bob Woodward.
Mr Card, who retired in March as chief of staff, backed up key parts of Woodward's book as the White House sought to limit the fallout from its publication before Americans go to polls next month in mid-term elections.
In a television interview, Mr Card revealed that he had kept a notebook while working as Mr Bush's top aide and noted on two separate occasions that he felt that the time was right to dismiss the sometimes abrasive Mr Rumsfeld.
"At least two times I did recommend a change in the position of the secretary of defence, after an election or around a January 1 date," he said. Mr Card recommended that the veteran Republican James Baker take over to improve the prospects of extricating American troops from Iraq.
Mr Card was forced to deny, however, that Laura Bush, the First Lady, had joined him in a campaign against Mr Rumsfeld.
The White House offered strong support yesterday for Mr Rumsfeld who, in December, will become America's longest serving defence secretary. White House counsellor Dan Bartlett said: "We recognise that he has his critics. What President Bush looks to in Secretary Rumsfeld is to bring him the type of information he needs to make the right decisions in this war."
Mr Bartlett led efforts to deride Woodward's claims that Mr Bush had consistently misled Americans with optimistic reports about Iraq. Mr Bartlett said Woodward had reached conclusions that were not supported by his evidence. "The central thesis of this book, that the president was in a state of denial, is not backed up with the facts," said Mr Bartlett.
He rejected an allegation that two months before the September 11 attacks, the then-national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was told by top spies that they had a "sixth sense" that a massive al-Qa'eda onslaught was imminent.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Baghdad, rebuffed the renewed chorus of calls for American troops to withdraw from Iraq because the battle had become a recruiting ground for Islamic terrorists.
"If we leave Iraq before the job is done we will be faced with a problem of global terrorism that will be worse than before," he said.
Separately, a new biography of Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, says that Mr Bush sacked the former general and bluntly rejected his analysis that the war in Iraq had become a failed project.
Why are you trusting Woodward on this?
Amazing that the President can ever get anything done in the War on Terror with people like you around.
Card isn't a liberal.
Ya' sure it wasn't Congrescritter Foley who wanted Rummy in the sack?
I don't buy into the garbage about things going poorly in Iraq. We are still killing insurgents by the bushel, Al Qaeda is under the microscope and can't transfer people, weapons, or money without us knowing about it, or without them using the Russians and Chinese to do it.
The government is there, its working, the GDP and infrastructure are improving, and most of the country is stable.
We were in Germany for 44 years after WWII! We're STILL in Japan, and I believe we are legally responsible for defending her at this late date.
Our being there in those kinds of numbers is kind of handy with Iran threatening regional nuclear war against Israel.
I guess a lie repeated enough becomes the truth quicker than anyone realizes.
I have to disagree on that one. Rummy darn near destroyed the military the first go at it which if I read your age right happened before you were even born. Not all the blame falls on him though back then as today there was a congress who also failed to do their duty. But I want to show you something.
Rummy would have had to have known our military was in deep trouble when he took office. It was all over the news and it was the media under Clinton saying as much. Here's some examples.
Navy May Have To Dock Ships Due to Poor Maintenance
Record deployments take toll on military
The Shrinking Navy: Build-Down To Breakdown Now a good Secretary of Defense would have called in the JCOS ASAP the day he took office and asked what do you need? What is deployable and what isn't? What are the maintenance issues? How many troops do you need to maintain a ready to deploy military> Can we handle if needed two hemispheric long term engagements? Can we do this without being over deployed and dependent on the reservist? But Rummy and congress didn't do that. They waited till after 9/11 and tried to deploy two carriers which should by all rights have been in the shipyard.
The ships weren't ready due to issues that originated at the Pentagon level yet the ships Two Commanding Officers were relieved of duty as scapegoats. Can you name me the Admirals who were relieved of duty? It is the Pentagon and Secretary of the Navy and in some cases Secretary of Defense who approves or disapproves of needed ship yard work. The Ships Captain has some say but not much.
Between 1981-1988 this nation had it's most ready military in post WW2 history and it operated non reservist dependent. I'll add more to this. If Rummy is so smart well then Clinton's Sec of Defense must have been also a real gem. Congress and Rummy are fighting the war in Iraq and elsewhere based on Slick Willie's 1996End Troop Strength numbers for active duty. You see he and congress passed up the Golden Opportunity to repair the damage such as increasing the active duty military to where troops were not seeing two and three different year long combat deployments an enlistment. Rummy/Congress is using every band-aid tactic possible such as 8 year obligations and never ending reservist/NG call ups rather than add more needed regular active duty.
The weeks following 9/11 could have had enough volunteers to have FIXED the manpower issue. You can not win a war and cut defense at the same time.
If Rummy and congress keep it up they will destroy the Branch Reserve armed forces as well as the National Guards. How much longer to you think the private sector can afford these never ending call ups? Before Bush SR any reservist might have seen a call up one time in their reserve career and by that I mean the lifers. Now it's S.O.P. in the D.O.D. NG's unless there is an all out war belong at home especially after AMPLE TIME has passed to train new troops.
No I do not agree with how Rummy has managed the Armed Forces nor congress sitting on their hands ala John Warner. It's not his party name but his policies. Rummy isn't even in the same class as Caspar was in management abilities.
Feel better now?
You can talk until you're blue in the face and it's not going to change my mind. I'm interning with the Department of Defense right now BECAUSE of Rummy, not in spite of him.
What are you talking about?
But if this is true .. I am surprised Card would do this to the President"
I don't believe Card EVER said anything like that to Woodward. Its not his style, totally out of character. He respects this Presidency and seemed to take great pride in the administration and the part he was able to play for 5+ years. It might have been speculated that he wasn't a Rummy fan but I'm betting he never expressed his opinion on the matter.
Correct spelling Susan LINDAUER a/k/a Susan Symbol.
She was indicted, along with 2 Iraqi IIS agents for violation of Foreign Agent Registration act,violation of Iraqi sanctions.
Just checking, she'd still apparently non compos mentos and under some sort of medication.(The lefties think she's being held and brainwashed by those awful Neo-cons, or something...)
Thanks for being honest about where you work and who for. LOL.
Then Card need to come out and set the record straight
Hugh Hewitt mentioned that Downing came out on MSNBC and said it is innacurate and not true about a meeting Woodeard wrote about him
The real culprit here is Richard Nixon. Had he not **ed up with Watergate the Democrats and Libs would never have been so empowered as to hand over S.V. to the VC, dismantle the US Armed Forces, and blow kisses to the Soviet Union. Ford led the nation while handcuffed, and his Cabinet, Rummy included, were acting on orders of Congress, not the Executive.
The other problem with Nixon was his inane price control regime -- of which said Donald Rumsfeld was the Czar. But at least Nixon recognized that it was stupid, as did Ford. Jimbo Carter actually believed in Price Controls, and damned near dismantled capitalism over 'em.
Basically, the 1970s sucked.
Why are you posting this when it has been confirmed from Mr. Card that he never suggested anything of what is printed in the lib's "drive-by" L.S.M???
Find your own posting theather within your own liberal muzzie country of the U.K. Secretary Rumsfeld is probably the most effective this country has had. Your own Des Brown does not reach above Rummis's shoe soles to !!!
I knew the Clintons could do a better job. Bwah.
No, Rumsfeld was Bush's best decision.
Rumsfeld saw clearly the need to transform the US military from an obsolete Cold War fighting machine into something more lithe and nimble, fitted to meet the enemies we face today. More than that, he could had the courage and the backbone to actually DO IT.
The entrenched careerists in the Pentagon didn't like that. Tough beans. They deserved to have their chops busted.
No, the worst thing about all those a-holes is that Nixon's idiocy empowered them. The fools will always be out there. What mattered in '74 is that Nixon handed it over to them. Honestly, there was little Ford could do, especially after doing the right thing in pardoning Nixon.
Meanwhile, Vietnam burned, the US Military was emasculated, and the economy fizzed.
Perhaps what's most amazing is that we came out of it at all.
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