The WashPost “Indicts” Reichsfuhrer Rumsfeld!

If you detest Rumsfeld as much as I do, this article from today’s post will please you mightily:

Rumsfeld's Legacy: The Iraq Syndrome?
By Lawrence Freedman, January 9, 2005, The Washington Post

Just as Vietnam became McNamara's War, Iraq has become Rumsfeld's War.

From the outset, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has inserted himself in almost every aspect of the campaign, from military strategy to postwar planning, and served as the war's public face. In doing so, he's claimed that one of the advantages of such centralized control was that there was a clear point of accountability.

Now he is being held to account and facing a formidable indictment: rejecting a top general's advice on the force levels that would be needed to restore order to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime had been toppled; dismissing State Department advice and plans on postwar reconstruction; failing to realize the seriousness of the early looting and chaos; supporting the disbanding of the Iraqi army without regard to the likely consequences of turning loose thousands of armed and angry unemployed soldiers; and inviting a public relations disaster by circumventing the laws of war to facilitate the indefinite holding and periodic torturing of prisoners. More recently, Rumsfeld has been rebuked for his dismissive treatment of soldiers anxious about inadequate equipment and for adding insult to injury by having a machine sign his condolence letters to bereaved families.

In countering these charges, Rumsfeld cannot complain that he was the victim of poor advice, because the only advice he appears to trust is his own. This was evident from the moment he arrived at the Pentagon and is one reason why comparisons with President Lyndon B. Johnson's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, are apt and illuminating. And just as McNamara left behind the "Vietnam syndrome," when Rumsfeld departs, his bequest may well be an "Iraq syndrome."

I love it! Enjoy the rest of the article here.