Rumsfeld's 'in denial,' ex-aide sez
WASHINGTON - A longtime adviser to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed yesterday that his former boss is "in denial" about Iraq and will end his Pentagon tenure as a failure.
"I think his failures are quite glaring, almost blinding right now," Kenneth Adelman told "CBS Evening News" in an interview aired last night.
Adelman, who famously predicted before the 2003 invasion that the war would be "a cakewalk," said Rumsfeld has presided over an inexplicable series of missteps that have crippled the war effort.
"I mean, you go on and the litany just breaks your heart," said Adelman, who has been declared persona non grata by Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, another longtime friend.
"There was incompetence ... you look at the evidence: there's no other conclusion that you can make."
Adelman, a prominent member of the Washington Republican establishment, said Rumsfeld consistently refused to listen to bad news about Iraq.
"He said, 'This war will never be lost in Baghdad, it will only be lost in America,'" Adelman said. "And I tried to butt in and say 'It is being lost in Iraq. What are you talking about?'... And he said, 'Excuse me,' and just went on."
Thomas M. DeFrank
Originally published on December 5, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/477189p-401485c.html
IMHO, all Gates just did was go before their little committee, play back all their talking points, take his verbal floggings from FatTed & Co and get through the process so he can go over to the Pentagon and START DOING HIS D*** JOB.
Bush and his appointees have already been through this deal enough to know that it doesn't really matter how qualified they are, if they don't play by the dims' rules before this committee, it'll take until Easter to get through all the bloviations while the work he's supposed to be doing is all handed out to whatever Clinton hacks are still left so they can screw the pooch and leak stuff.