How Rummy Skewered Hillary
I’ve been thinking about Salena Zito’s column all day. Salena’s column talks about how Don Rumsfeld skewered Hillary Clinton when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. It all got started when Hillary went on a 12 minute diatribe directed squarely at Rumsfeld. Here’s the heart of Hillary’s diatribe:
Under your leadership there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have a full fledged insurgency and full blown sectarian conflict in Iraq. Now, whether you label it a civil war or not, it certainly has created a situation of extreme violence and the continuing loss of life among our troops and of the Iraqis. You did not go into Iraq with enough troops to establish law and order. You disbanded the entire Iraqi army, now we’re trying to recreate it. You did not do enough planning for what is called Phase IV and rejected all the planning that had been done previously to maintain stability after the regime was overthrown. You underestimated the nature and strength of the insurgency, the sectarian violence, and the spread of Iranian influence.
Here’s Rummy’s response:
My goodness. First, I have tried to make notes and to follow the prepared statements you’ve presented.
First of all, it’s true, there is sectarian conflict in Iraq and there is a loss of life and it’s an unfortunate and tragic thing that that’s taking place. And it is true that there are people who are attempting to prevent that government from being successful. And they are the people who are blowing up buildings and killing innocent men, women, and children and taking off the heads of people on television and the idea of their prevailing is unacceptable.
Second, you said the number of troops were wrong. I guess history will make a judgment on that. The number of troops that went in and the number of troops that were there every month since, and the number of troops that are there today reflected the best judgment of the military commanders on the ground, their superiors, General Pace, General Abizad, the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense and the President of the United States. I think it’s not correct to assume that they were wrong numbers, and I don’t think the evidence suggests that and it will be interesting to see what history decides. The balance between having too many and contributing to an insurgency by a feeling of occupation and the risk of having too few and having the security situation not be sufficient for the political progress to go forward, is a complicated set of decisions and I don’t know that there’s any guidebook that tells you how to do it. There’s no rule book, there’s no history for this. And the judgments that have been made have been made by exceedingly well-trained people, the gentleman sitting next to me, the people on the ground in Iraq. They were studied and examined and analyzed by the civilian leadership and by the President, and they were confirmed. So I think your assertion is at least debatable.
The idea that the army was disbanded I think is one that’s kind of flying around. My impression is that, to a great extent, that army disbanded itself. Our forces came in so fast. It was made up of a lot of Shia conscripts who didn’t want to be in it and thousands or at least many, many hundreds of Sunni generals who weren’t about to hang around after Saddam Hussein and his sons and administration were replaced. The work to build a new army has included an awful lot of the people from the prior army, and it has benefited from that.
Rummy skewered Hillary with the “My goodness.” As Salena says, “Rumsfeld does not suffer fools lightly. Clinton may have thought her wrecking-ball questions would be devastatingly effective. They weren’t. “Wars are terrible things,” Rumsfeld told me. “(But) we have to live in this world…We can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not there.
I couldn’t agree more. Hillary came across as a Deaniac who’d gone too long without a diatribe whereas Rummy came across as poised and armed with facts.
The truth is that Hillary is doing her best to not sounds too pro war without abandoning her vote for authorizing war. It’s her attempt to triangulate an issue that can’t be triangulated.
Technorati Tags: Hillary, Rumsfeld, Military
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 14th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Wow? Did you buy any of Rumsfeld statements? Did you think any of them or facts? Which ones? Secretary Rumsfeld’s first point really only points out that there were not enough troops on the ground in order to prevent the looting and the subsequent chaos that has reigned since the looting. If order was restored directly after we claimed Baghdad we would not have this problem with sectarian violence that we’re having now.
You don’t really believe that an authoritarian, dictatorial person like Secretary Rumsfeld allowed the military to make any decisions on their own do you? “Snowflakes” were constantly sent to Generals. Initial estimates of 300,000 to 400,000 troops were consistently belittled by Rumsfeld. I’m sure you’re familiar with the multiple different plans that were brought to Rumsfeld over a 14 month period before the war. I’m sure that you’re aware that no plan called for 130,000 or 150,000 or even 175,000 troops. Every single plan that was brought to Secretary Rumsfeld by Tommy Franks contained over 250,000 troops. He rejected all of them saying that they’re all old and arcane. Anthony Zinni’s plan contained over 350,000 troops.
I’m sure that you’re aware that the TPFDL is a military computer program which automatically figures out the logistical and ancillary units that need to be sent with combat forces. This little program make sure that the third infantry division gets deployed with its equipment and enough ammunition to get the job done. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld canceled this little exercise.
Finally, I’m sure that you’re aware Secretary Rumsfeld micromanaged the war. He even told the General’s which units to deploy and when. He even told them when to notify reserve units that they were to be called up.
When you actually check the facts, read the book Cobra II, there’s very little that Donald Rumsfeld said that was true. Either it was meaningless blather or it’s simply wasn’t true.
August 14th, 2006 at 6:14 am
Goodness,
That Grape or Cherry?
The flavor of the week before the assault was 100,000 dead in the march on Baghdad. No wonder we needed 250,000. In the military (I’m medical retired SF) we are always preparing for the last war and where do you think TPFDL came from? As someone who has permanent scars from hostile fire, I’ll trust Ralph Peters (who was in some of the same places at the same time) over bloviating politicians any day. While the problems in any combat theater are innumerable, it seems to be going a lot better in Iraq than any realistic expectation. Two and a half percent of what we expected in the first 90 days after all this time?
BTW, not that I give a rat’s a$$ about the contents of the Baghdad museum, but wasn’t most of the “looted” property found to have been squirreled away by the employees? And for other looting, please refence the New Orleans Police Department. They seem to be rather good at it.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Rummy doesn’t quite understand the concept of videotape.
His smugness about who was running the show (himself) and his rosy-painting of what we could expect from the War (…certainly not 6 months…) are all on tape.
Revisionist history only counts when you can convince people you really didn’t say certain things, unless you have a tame media which is too afraid to call you a liar. Which in DR’s defense he does.