OK. I don't understand why Rumsfeld should resign over this.

Yes, it was bad, and the people who committed the acts should be severely dealt with. And yes, the commander who had immediate oversight should be, at minimum, severely reprimanded if not demoted. But why Rummy? About the worst I can figure he did was not tell Congress about it earlier. So what's the big deal about that? Did he try to cover it up and I just didn't hear about it?

Frankly, this ranks pretty low on the list of Bush administration fuckups if you ask me. Lying about why we needed to go to war is 100 times worse. Covering up the cost of the Medicare bill is 10 times worse. Eviscerating the Constitution when you've sworn an oath to protect and defend it is grounds for impeachment, IMO.

So what am I missing about this case? Clue me in?

criminal

It may not be the greatest of bushies' crimes, but it might just be the one that brings them down. Drip, drip, drip.

This is classic imperialism. We come charging into a country to take it over. We treat the people that live there like lesser beings. Not only are the Iraqis not masters in their own home, they are treated like second class citizens after all of this talk about mass grave sites and rape rooms, etc. How they are better off without Hussein. On the contrary, I think that this is at the very heart of the matter. This is why they need to be taken to task for this.

You are talking about the whole justification for the war, and I think a better case could be made to blame Rummy (and Cheney) for lying us into war than for blaming Rummy for the torture and abuse of the POW's.

If he heard about it months ago and gave tacit approval to continue it, that would DEFINTELY be grounds. But if he heard about it, investigated it, but just didn't report it to Congress soon enough, I don't know.

...as I said yesterday, this goes beyond the people who performed these actions most likely. If Rumsfeld knew, he had a responsibility to stop it. If he was for it or just decided to look the other way, he should go down.

From that post, it looks like he was given several flagrant warnings about problems dating back to October 03 or so. I hadn't heard about that before.

He established a culture at the Pentagon that anything goes with prisoners. It started with the prisons set up in Afghanistan and Gitmo where he designated the prisoners as "enemy combatants" so that they would be denied the minimal protections of the Geneva convention. When they got to Iraq, he extended the interpretation to Iraqi prisoners. He also was directly responsible for the hiring 3rd party contractors to "protect" the military, thereby unleashing over 20,000 unregulated ass-whippers onto the streets of Iraq (some of them are also running the prisons).

If that's not good enough, Rumsfeld should go because it sends a strong message to the rest of the world that America does not tolerate torture. That should be reason enough right there.

Congress is suddenly realizing they've been blindsided during an election year. All this stuff coming out makes anybody who's in power look bad. They are worried about their collective political asses, that is all. Rummy didn't tell them about all this when he went up there last week asking for money.

Nothing Congress hates more than someone with their hat in one hand and hiding poop with the other.

Of course that's not true for the few who did vote not to go into this insane war.

He's part and parcel of the PROBLEM. So, he should resign. Afterward, he should be indicted for obstruction of justice, if anyone who participated in the torture is brought to trial.

He did more than "make a mistake". He knew Dub should have been told about this. Even if DUb WAS informed by someone else (and sat on the info himself, an impeachable offense BTW) if Grumpy Rummy knew and did not explicitly order that Dub be made aware of the torture, he effectively participated in a cover-up. And he should still resign.x(

B-)

TIMELINE: What was known, and when.

Fall 2003 Bremer repeatedly raises issue of prison conditions with Rumsfeld and the President's inner circle according to LA Times: "Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as 'kicking and screaming' about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

November 5, 2003 Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder files report concluding that there were potential human rights, training, and manpower issues -- system wide -- that needed immediate attention. Discussed serious concerns about tension between missions of the military police assigned to guard prisoners and intelligence teams who interrogate them. (New Yorker Magazine, Hersh, 5/5/04

January 2004 Rumsfeld learns of photographs showing prisoner abuse according to the Washington Post: "...Rumsfeld has known of the photographs since January, when they came to the attention of U.S. commanders in Iraq, he had not seen them, and he was not aware that CBS was about to air them until just hours before they were broadcast last week." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

Mid-January, 2004 Bush told about the photo of abuse according to the Washington Post: "Marine Gen. Peter Pace...said Wednesday on CBS's "Early Show" that beginning in mid-January, everyone "up the chain of command . . . was kept apprised orally of the ongoing investigation." Asked if Bush "was well aware of the situation," Pace replied: "Yes."" (Washington Post, Allen, 5/7/04)

Late February 2004 Major General Antonio M. Taguba issues 53-page report concluding that between October and December 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. Report was not meant for public release. (New York, Hersh, 5/5/04 and LA Times, McDonnell, 5/3/04)

March 2004 Six enlisted personnel charged with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. One is court marshaled. (AP, Burns, 5/3/04)

Mid-April, 2004 Military learns CBS has pictures of prisoner abuse in Iraq. General Abizaid and General Myers ask CBS to post-pone broadcast of the photos. (NY Times, Schmitt, 5/4/04)

April 28, 2004

* Graphic photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners are shown on CBS 60 Minutes 2. (AP, Crary, 4/28/04)
* Rumsfeld provides classified briefing to Congressional leaders on situation in Iraq, fails to mention that photos of Iraqi abuse victims will be aired that evening on television. (Senate Armed Services Committee Testimony, Levin, 5/7/04)
* May 3, 2004 Spokesman McClellan says that Bush still hasn't seen or been briefed on the Taguba report. (WH Briefing, McClellan, 5/3/04).

May 4, 2004

* Rumsfeld says he disagrees with critics who have said the Pentagon moved too slowly. Defense Department officials have moved correctly and efficiently, he said. "The system works," he said. "The system works." Admitted he had not read the whole Taguba report or seen the photos. (DoD Briefing, Rumsfeld, 5/4/04)
* Military discloses Army has conducted 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths of Iraqis already determined to have been criminal homicides. (NY Times, Neilan, 5/5/04)
* General George Casey, Army's Vice-Chief of Staff, refers to a "complete breakdown in discipline." (NY Times, Reuters wire, 5/5/04)

I don't know how I can read the news every day and miss all of that stuff. I had no idea he was getting warnings like that back in October. Thanks!

which is something you'll never see any member of this Administration do.

they just keep passing it. This is only one of a LONG list of reasons for that SOB to resign. Rummy is responsible for the actions of the US military and you can bet that arrogant son of a bitch was responsible for allowing private 'contractors' to conduct interrogations. Rummy is responsible for the mess in Iraq. Rummy is responsible for deaths of hundreds of American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis. On second thought , he shouldn't resign. He should be removed from office, tried convicted and put away for the rest of his miserable fucking life. .

I'm gonna stifle the short answer "Because he is satan's spawn" in order to help you understand.

If you have a subordinate committing illegal acts and you don't know you are a stupid supervisor. If you know and do nothing then you are a Bad Supervisor. If you know and cover it up then you are an evil supervisor. All three types of supervisors should be fired. Now expand that to a man in CHARGE of the military and his subordinates killling, raping, humiliating and otherwise being evil spawns of satan.

Rumsfield DID nothing. No report to congress, no changes in the military gaurd, no responses to continual complaints by the red cross.

Instead he is complaining about how this information leaked out.

He got jailed for tax evasion, because they couldn't decisively get him on the worse crimes.

He needs to take responsibility - war criminal!

I think the biggest reason for the abuse case to have blown up the way it has is because this whole war has been presented with such high moral justification.

I think we have oversold our nobility.

and welcome to DU

The war excuses have gone from Saddam threatening the US with WMD, to Saddam aiding al Quaida, to the final last gasp of 'liberating the Iraqis from a terrible dictator'.

I guess I've known we 'oversold our nobility' forever, so that didn't come as any real shock to me.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

This sure is an interesting place!

Here's the list of Rumsfeld screwups:

1. Failure to maintain focus on Afghanistan, where forces
resided with demonstrable links to Al Qaida.

2. Strategic shift to Iraq, which a) diluted the Afghan
effort as noted above and b) had no WMD, no significant
connections to international terrorism, and was at most
a highly contained threat, thus making a pool of potential
terrorists where none existed before

3. Failure to plan for the rapid collapse of the Iraqi
government and the post-invasion occupation

4. Failure to send enough troops to properly manage the
occupation and transition.

5. Failure to oversee and supervise civilian contractors.

6. Failure to rapidly respond to the torture and abuse of
prisoners, punish those responsible, and pro-actively make
a case to the middle-eastern world that these horrendous
abuses have been stopped, and will not happen again.

I wrote this in about two minutes, off the top of my head.
If I actually did a day or two's research, I'm sure I could
triple the length of this list. But these are the important
reasons why this complete and utter fool has to go -- he is
is charging down the wrong path, with the wrong tools, and
screwing it up as he goes. The problems with his leadership
lie at all levels: corrective action loops (there aren't any),
execution, planning, strategy. There's only one thing to do
with a leader that incompetent: fire him and replace him.

J,
feeling awfully damned martial this morning

All of those things are basically true, and worthy of investigation, but nobody bothered with any of them until the torture thing came up.

And the torture thing was one that he was least directly involved in.

It's like the freepers blaming Clinton because two tapes were missing from Los Alamos. Yes, ultimately, the buck stops at the top, but the top dog can't be held responsible for stuff that happens at the lowest levels. He can't babysit all 3 million members of the military 24 hours a day.

Anyway, someone above gave me a darned good answer on this. I didn't know how many and how forceful warnings he'd had.

It was Rummy and/or the high-level members of his staff
that announced, to great fanfare, that the normal "Geneva
Convention" protections would not apply to "enemy com-
batants", a category that apparently means whatever Rummy
wants it to mean.

It's very arguable that this whole mess is a direct result
of a policy, shaped, articulated, and sold by Rumsfeld:
men and women held in and by a system accountable to no one
but itself.

Oh, and I forgot to include the whole intelligence-analysis
debacle vis a vis Iraq as yet another huge failure that
happened on Rumsfeld's watch. Don't know how I forgot that
one.

I will agree that Clinton and Bush cannot personally babysit
a 3-million person armed force. But they *can* babysit their
Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs, the central command, etc, and
demand both accountability and results.

I can't explain why it took this to get through to the
sonambulistic American consciousness. You're right: any
one item on that list I wrote should have been enough.
The only thought I have is that here the crimes were
caught in living (or dead) color, unambiguous, unspinnable,
and horrible.

For myself: I've been demanding Rumsfeld's head in monthly
rants to my congress-critters for well over a year now.


J.

now...once we've spent time blaming him personally on not having control over this supposed "liberation" all people will be quicker to blame him first when things go sh!tstorm in Iraq. This will happen. People who know Rummy and disagree with everything this admin does knew he would look like a pr!ck and that Bush would back him.

This merely puts the stench of controversy on him as well. It will give more impetus to people for getting RID of this creep's boss.

Goodbye.

As America approaves of what the administration is doing

He should be forced to step down as soon as possible so as not to allow Bushco to do ANY damage control

in their inhumanity that people who have been lucky enough to live a comparatively civilized life and are therefore viscerally shocked by these images are going to be reminded of them and involuntarily repulsed every time they see Rumsfeld from now on. Bush's association with these images are indelible.

How Lieberman can make apologies for torture based on "they did it to us and didn't apologize" strains credulity.

or is it an *option*?

I'd say it isn't an option but a responsibility. Congress has Constitutional oversight over the Pentagon, among other things. Rummy - and bushco in general - treat their Constitutional responsibilities as options.

If Rummy failed in a responsibility, he should go. But beyond that, he obviously engaged in a cover-up.

Case closed.

I believe that say it all

has been shat all over by these actions, Rumsfeld's lack of urgency and handling of it?

We are supposed to be giving "freedom" to the Iraq's, remember?


Also, it worse BECAUSE THERE ARE PICTURES.

That's the only way you get anybody's attention in our age. That's all the media cares about. A picture. Would the media give a damn about Laci Peterson if she weren't so damn photogenic and there were all these pictures?

Sad but true.

Scummy said it himself. Digital cameras may be the unsung hero that will bring down Bushco.