Rumsfeld a National Security Risk

[trillian]

Live blog with Eric and Terry at kos

Rumsfeld a National Security Risk:
Fighting Dems Eric Massa (NY-29) and Terry Stulce (TN-03)


Today Terry Stulce and I are blogging about National Security. We want to begin by mentioning a recent workshop hosted by Congresswoman Jane Harman which we both attended. Most of you are familiar with the Real Security Plan put out by Democratic leaders about a month ago. But very few of you are familiar with the excellent work Representative Harman has been doing behind the scenes. We want to publicly recognize that effort and offer her our thanks. Terry and I were both very impressed by the quality of the workshop and look forward to future interaction with Representative Harman.

Most of you are probably aware of the petition that Jeff Latas and I announced last week calling for the resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld. Please go and sign the The Petition for Rumsfeld's Resignation. Note the large number of Fighting Dem Vet candidates who have signed the Petition calling for his resignation.

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Since last week when we wrote about seven generals who had called for his resignation, four other retired senior officers, three generals and an admiral, have also called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign.

Today, Terry and I want to talk about National Security and why we believe Secretary Rumsfeld endangers our National Security. Secretary Rumsfeld is not the only member of the Bush administration who endangers our National Security, but he has had a key role even in areas where he does not bear primary responsibility. We do however, agree with General Irvine, who said

Iraq is President Bush's war. If the criticism of Rumsfeld is seen as valid, then responsibility for what has happened doesn't stop at Rumsfeld's desk. It goes across the Potomac.

We want to show that Secretary Rumsfeld has shown a lack of competent leadership in at least three major national security concerns: the response to the real terror threat, the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and associated military challenges, and the growing need for action regarding Iran.

The Real Terror Threat

Although the Bush administration tries to spin away the increase in terrorism since the invasion of Iraq, the numbers do not lie. The policies of the Bush administration, and its inept implementation of those policies, seem to have contributed to the increase in terrorist incidents.

Secretary Rumsfeld had a key role in lobbying for the Iraq War, distorting intelligence, and deceiving the public about secret preparations for the war. According to Richard Clarke, Rumsfeld began pushing for the Iraq War immediately after 9-11. And he famously stated that we knew where Saddam’s (now known to be non-existent) WMDs were. Rumsfeld also publicly belittled all who were trying to sound the alarm about the secret plans to invade Iraq. Here’s a sample from September 22, 2002, a full nine months after war plans began in earnest:

Q: Sources say the President has a war plan on his desk about attacking Iraq? What types of options were provided to the President?
Rumsfeld: Of course I could and I won’t. I must say I find the people that are talking to the media about war plans are so far out of line and so disgracefully misbehaving that I find it stunning and a weak effort.
First of all I can tell you that anyone who knows anything isn’t talking and anyone with any sense isn’t talking therefore the people that are talking to the media by definition people who don’t know anything and people who don’t have a hell of a lot of sense.

Secretary Rumsfeld is aware that the Iraq War is creating more terrorists. But instead of taking responsibility, he tries to blame the media and his critics. He specifically stated to Rush Limbaugh that war critics are being manipulated by Zarqawi and Bin Laden’s ‘Media Committees.’

He is right that we have a PR problem. We are losing the battle for hearts and minds in the streets of the Muslim world. But the problem is not in the newsrooms of New York and Los Angeles. The problem is that Secretary Rumsfeld, among others, has made indefensible choices that play into the hands of our enemies in the Muslim world. Professor Joseph Nye summed it up well:

Now Rumsfeld finally realizes the importance of winning hearts and minds, but, as The Economist put it, “a good part of his speech was focused on how with slicker PR America could win the propaganda war”. In other words, in blaming the media for America’s problems, Rumsfeld forgot the first rule of marketing: if you have a poor product, not even the best advertising will sell it.

Aftermath of Iraq Invasion/Incompetent Military Leadership

Chief among these indefensible choices was the choice to invade Iraq on false pretenses. That alone should be sufficient grounds to call for his resignation. When one adds in the choices to approve torture and to keep secret prisoners, etc., the picture emerges of someone who feels he is above the law. General Van Riper, who spoke out this week calling for Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation, went on recordin 2004 about these problems:

….if the various memos, his interpretations, the instructions given to those who were handling the prisoners in Guantánamo, those same key officers taking these same ideas to Iraq -- and in particular, his idea that you could stash a prisoner and leave him unaccounted for in Iraq for a lengthy period of time, that somehow this was okay -- that all tells me that he must feel himself above the law if he's not concerned about this.

General Van Riper is in a somewhat unique position to also judge the competency of Secretary Rumsfeld. He commanded both the Marine War College at Quantico, Va., and the prestigious National War College in Washington before retiring in 1997. In 2002, he was asked to take the opposition side in a war game simulation evidently meant to showcase Rumsfeld’s plans for invasion of Iraq. General Van Riper used an unconventional strategy that actually defeated Rumsfeld’s side at sea before it landed. But instead of admitting defeat Rumsfeld simply changed the rules and forced the opposition side to use tactics that made it possible for his plan to succeed. Van Riper gave three specific areas where he believes the leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld to be lacking:

First, he said, if any battalion commander under him <b>had created so ''poor a climate of leadership'' and the ''bullying''</b> that goes on in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, he would order an investigation and relieve that commander. ''Even more than that I focus on (his) incompetence when it comes to preparing American military forces for the future,'' Van Riper said. ''His idea of transformation turns on empty buzz words. There's none of the scholarship and doctrinal examination that has to go on before you begin changing the force.'' Third, he said, under Rumsfeld there's been <b>no oversight of military acquisition.

In 2004, General Van Riper spoke about how the decision to invade Iraq has affected the military and damaged the nation:

They're ignorant of military operations, of strategy and policy. The effect is normally they're disdainful of those they lead. And then, as they begin to increase their power, they become arrogant, and they're unwilling to accept advice, even though they claim they are willing to accept the advice. But by their very actions, either relieving people or publicly humiliating people, you don't get the sort of push back you need to have the dialogue, the understanding, the debate out of which you will synthesize better ideas. As a consequence, at some point they reach where they think they're above the law, and so they begin to do things that even are unlawful. So you go from disdain of the people you're working around to an arrogance about the whole situation to where you think you're above it. And I believe in the case of Mr. Rumsfeld, we've reached that.
… (speaking of General Zinni) I think what bothers him is what bothers all of us. We literally can't sleep at night. Those young soldiers, Marines, are dying for a war that didn't have to be fought when it was fought. It needed to be fought sometime, but not when it was fought. Certainly should not have been fought the way it was.
When I see any of these individuals on the television -- Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith -- I literally cannot stand it. I have to turn the television off. I'm so embittered about what they've done to a fine military -- more importantly, what they've done to our nation. They've hurt our nation.

On April 14, Salon revealed that Rumsfeld was personally involved in directing the harsh interrogation of a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, according to a sworn statement by an Army lieutenant general who investigated prisoner abuse at the U.S. base in Cuba. Other recent critics have focused on the interference of Secretary Rumsfeld in investigations of torture:

It's extremely difficult to believe that what happened at Guantánamo and Bagram and Abu Ghraib is all coincidental," said retired Brig. Gen. Jim Cullen, who served as the chief judge (IMA) of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. "We need a much more extensive investigation into what went wrong and who at the top was responsible. With Rumsfeld continuing at the top that's not possible.

Allegations of torture are a big part of the reason we are losing the war for hearts and minds. Secretary Rumsfeld’s actions prevent us from getting to the bottom of the torture problem, which keeps us from being able to counter the claims of our enemies. If Secretary Rumsfeld is responsible for torture, as General Van Riper suggested in 2004, then he believes himself to be above the law. This should not be tolerated.

The Growing Iran Issue

A potential invasion of Iran is another reason to call for Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation. Given his known willingness to deceive the public prior to the invasion of Iraq, we really need a more honest broker as Secretary of Defense if we are even contemplating the invasion of another Middle Eastern country. We noted earlier the comments by Secretary Rumsfeld about those who were trying to alert the world to secret war plans against Iraq. Now he is making similar derisive comments about those trying to alert the world about possible plans to invade Iran:

Q: What planning, if any, has the Pentagon been undertaken for the possibility of military action involving Iran? And has the nuclear strike option been ruled out?
RUMSFELD: You know, someone comes up with an idea, runs it in a magazine or a paper; other papers pick it up and reprint it; editorialists, then, say, Oh, Henny Penny, the sky is falling, and opine on this and opine that.
…But it is just simply not useful to get into fantasyland.

Others have noted that what the Bush administration, including Secretary Rumsfeld, is doing today is very similar to what it did prior to the Iraq War, which is a cause for grave concern. Secretary Rumsfeld seems intent on casting this as good vs evil:

We need to put Iraq and Afghanistan in that context so that those people in our country who are deeply concerned about Iran, which is understandable, recognize that success in Afghanistan and success in Iraq is critical to containing the extreme impulses that we see emanating from Iran,'' Rumsfeld said according a transcript released by the Department of Defense.
``The last thing Iran wants is to have successful regimes, representative systems, free people in Afghanistan and Iraq,'' Rumsfeld said in the interview. ``It is harmful to their view of the world, to their extreme view of the world.''
Asked if Iran is ``tied together'' in the War on terror, Rumsfeld replied ``indeed.''

We agree with General Clark that Iran is playing a game. And we agree with Juan Cole that the war in Iraq has strengthened the hand of Iran. The Iranian problem is real and growing. We cannot afford to have the failed leadership techniques of Donald Rumsfeld that have resulted in Bin Laden’s escape and an unstable Iraq employed on another serious international problem.

Conclusion
Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department has failed to address the real terror threat. In fact, the data shows that the problem has only been made worse through his leadership. Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department has created instability in Iraq through both the arrogance of torture and secret prisoners and incompetent military strategies brought about by a poor leadership climate. Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department cannot be trusted to handle Iran. Donald Rumsfeld cannot be made the sole scapegoat for the Bush Administrations woeful neglect of real national security; nevertheless, it’s time for Rumsfeld to go.

Join with 47 Fighting Dem Vet candidates in signing the petition to call for Rumsfeld's resignation here.