Rumsfeld: Afghanistan Has ‘Been A Big Success!’

Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/10/rumsfeld-afghanistan-2/

Rumsfeld: Afghanistan Has ‘Been A Big Success!’

In a new interview with GQ, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes it clear that he’s not ready to discuss any of his “regrets.” “I mean you’d always wish things were perfect, but they never are,” he states. One area where he has no regrets is on the war in Afghanistan:

“Look at Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, 28 million people are free. They have their own president, they have their own parliament. Improved a lot on the streets.”

All your theories worked there, in other words.

“It’s been a big success!”

Perhaps in comparison to Iraq, Afghanistan has been a “big success.” But in reality, the country has been abandoned in the war on terrorism:

– Afghanistan’s embattled president, Hamid Karzai, recently said that security in his country had “definitely deteriorated.” A former national security official called it “a very diplomatic understatement.”

– At least 20 Afghans were killed in two suicide bombings today. Such attacks are on the rise, with the Taliban carrying out “103 suicide bombings in Afghanistan in the first eight months of 2007, a 69 percent increase over the same period last year.”

– For the second year in a row, “Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007,” led by a “staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province.”

Despite taking credit for the toppling the Taliban, Rumsfeld had a role in Afghanistan’s deterioration. In Feb. 2002, then Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed that “American troops join the small international peacekeeping force patrolling Kabul and help Karzai extend his influence beyond the capital.” Yet Rumsfeld blocked his proposal. Rumsfeld only “reversed course and cajoled European allies into sending troops” when the situation was clearly spiraling out of control.

When asked by the GQ interviewer whether he misses President Bush, Rumsfeld gave a “wry Rummy smile” and replied, “Um, no.” But he said he still sees Cheney. He also claimed that he continues to receive “hundreds and hundreds” of letters “complimenting” him on his service to the country.