A Rummy Way to Fight a War ----"a ruthless little bastard,"

[rodeodance]

A Rummy Way to Fight a War
A scathing look at the defense secretary who oversaw the Iraq conflict.

Reviewed by Bing West
Sunday, March 11, 2007; Page BW03


His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy


Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 2004
Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 2004 (David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images)


Andrew Cockburn opens his new book on Donald Rumsfeld by concluding that his subject was an insufferable disaster as secretary of defense, then goes on to provide dozens of anecdotes by way of proof. In this slim volume, we learn that Rumsfeld saved a multi-billion dollar bomber program that was "incapable of performing its mission"; as a businessman with G.D. Searle Co., pushed sugar substitutes through the Food and Drug Administration's approval process even though scientists believed the fake sugar "contributed to several thousand Americans" developing brain cancer; plotted with Dick Cheney to form "a secret government-in-waiting" during war games in hidden bunkers; tolerated levels of opium production in post-Taliban Afghanistan that meant "millions of future heroin addicts"; sanctioned torture at Abu Ghraib; procured tanks that had to wait "by the side of the road for the fuel truck" in Iraq; and ran a "reign of terror over the officer corps."

President Richard M. Nixon is quoted as describing Rumsfeld in March 1971 as "a ruthless little bastard," and reading Cockburn, one can only imagine what his exploits would be like if he had been taller. Hollywood might have cast Rumsfeld as the heavy who brought us global warming and penguin stew...........

[Hand]

1. Link?

[maddezmom]

2. here it is

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802439.html

:hi:

[Hand]

4. Thanx!

[donsu]

3. kick - and he still has a desk at the pentagon

nt