Clinton: Rumsfeld's effectiveness is waning

Saturday, May 8, 2004

Clinton: Rumsfeld's effectiveness is waning

By John Machacek
Journal Washington bureau

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Friday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has lost his edge, but stopped short of calling for his resignation.

''I think the secretary has to take a hard look at his effectiveness. He has some serious thinking to do,'' the New York Democrat said. She and others on the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Rumsfeld about his handling of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

Clinton said investigation into the abuse shows U.S. military police units in Iraq had not been sufficiently trained in handling prisoners and detainees under international rules, despite Rumsfeld's insistence the guards were prepared.

While published pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured are ''devastating,'' Clinton said, the ''underlying conduct and the failure of command, both at the (prison) site and further up the chain to act with the appropriate quick response is really at the heart of the most serious problems we face.''


more
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/today/localnews/stories/lo050804s5.shtml

after having some hours to think about this

That they basically told him time to go, without actually using the workds, better he rsign than be fired

I say he won't last the weekend. I've been reading some foreign newspapers, and they all seem to be giving him the 'thumbs down'. Not that their opinion matters, but it's good to read global perceptions of our dirty laundry here at home.

Any bets that he'll last till next week?

I'll be shocked if he's still on the job by this time next week; this is too big and all-compassing for him to stay..

I wish she would come out more forcefully against torture and humiliation of prisoners. Maybe once the child abuse and rape photos and/or videos come out she will be able to muster a bit more nerve.

She is a huge disappointment. Her war hawk manner and her moderate stances are signs that she seems to think now that Repub. LITE is her best strategy.

~snip~
CLINTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CLINTON: I think, Mr. Secretary, that you can discern from the questions that there are still many issues that we need further clarification on. I particularly look forward to the answer that you will provide to Senator Reed's last question -- following up on his line of questioning concerning the enabling of interrogation by M.P.s, something which, based on Army regulations, was not to be either done or condoned.

But, Mr. Secretary, in January 2002, when you publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention, that was taken as a signal.

And it is clear in looking through the number of investigations that are currently ongoing, that it wasn't just this particular battalion but others that did not receive appropriate training and information about their responsibilities with respect to detention or the Geneva Convention.

The atrocities that have been depicted in photographs were very graphically, verbally, described in the Taguba report. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to read those descriptions and have one's stomach just turn in disgust.

The focus on the pictures being released is, with all due respect, missing the point. The report was well known, and apparently discussed on numerous occasions. And obviously, the release of the pictures to the entire world was devastating.

But the underlying conduct, and the failure of the command, both at the site and further up the chain, to act with the appropriate quick response, is really at the heart of what the most serious problems we face here today are.

CLINTON: The information in the Taguba report links the atrocities at Abu Ghraib to Camp Buka. In fact, some of the same people, some of the same command, some of the same M.P.s were involved apparently.

And with respect to the recommendations at the end of General Taguba's report, they call for establishing the conditions with the resources and personnel required to prevent future occurrences of detainee abuse.

I would appreciate, since we don't have time in this round of questioning, to receive for the committee a report about exactly how that is being handled. What changes have been made? Are the Geneva Convention training going on now? Are the appropriate rules being posted in both English and Arabic?

And certainly an explanation as to the adequacy of the punishment that was meted out because, with respect to who was being punished for what, there is a clear distinction -- at least as reported by General Taguba -- between enlisted personnel and those up the command.

But I'm also concerned by a related matter. And let me just quickly reference the case of Chaplain Yee, the Muslim Army chaplain from Guantanamo Bay who was arrested and placed in solitary confinement. Ultimately all of the charges were dropped after his reputation was sullied.

CLINTON: It's obvious that the information about this particular case came from government sources. It was pushed out and it was widely disseminated.

So, Mr. Secretary, how is it that a case with no basis in fact gets such widespread publicity, based on information from government sources, while egregious conduct like that at the Abu Ghraib prison is cloaked in a classified report, and is only made available when the investigation is leaked to the press?

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8575-2004May7_5.html

Rummy, you're fired. Head staright to the Hague, and make some room for the other BFEE celmates to be as well.

I don't think Democrats should call for Rumsfeld's resignation. bush should be forced to take that responsibility - if he doesn't fire him, then he approves of what Rumsfeld is doing. It doesn't seem that there is anyone in charge in this country or Iraq.

Rumsfeld is in charge of the DoD, but he pushes responsibility downward past the joint chiefs to the commanders in the field. Spread the responsibility real wide and thin and then infer that there can't be accountability because theres no distinct pile of responsibility.

When we have WMD and 9/11 failures they get pointed at some vague shallow puddle of 'intelligence community' instead of several buckets that could be held accountable.

Iraq is a failure. But the blame for starting it goes to the UN. Then the military does a bang up job of invading, they are good at that. But then theres a bunch of soldiers standing around like 'duh, what next?' The profiteers rush in and do what they are good at. But who is supposed to be good at the nation-building part? The CIA and the state department usually, but neither had a good strategy.

Normally that would mean that you don't start the war. You get the CIA, State, Defense, Profiteers all into a win-win plan before you even engage. A collaborative effort, it needs leadership from the top to work. Al-Qeada can destroy things just by causing mayhem and fear, but to build really big things you need plans and cooperation not anarchy and competition.

But if you want a war, and can't build a win-win CIA,State,DoD,Profiteer plan; what do you do? You start up your own CIA and State within the DoD and the VP's office. Sound ground to build on regarding military and profiteer grounds, but really shaky on the Intelligence and State aspects. So shaky that you grab at straws like Chalabi who claims to have a network that can both provide the intelligence needed and also the post-war government.

So when your straw can't pull you through, who do you turn too? The state department can't help since you've cut the legs from under them. So you turn back to your warmongers (the political ones not the military ones) and ask them to remind you what the war was for.

...

Any way, the failure is at the top. The guys who bypassed cabinet consensus - scoop. Then trace down the the shadow cabinet, shadow intelligence and shadow state - scoop scoop. Then trace them to the sources of the war and and track down the agents of those sources scoop scoop scoop scoop. Flush

It can't be Wolfowitz. Too compromised. So who?