Irak 73

De Amerikaanse journalist Mike Whitney schrijft: 'Blood payments for Flawed Leadership "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bad news continues to pile up around Don Rumsfeld like garbage at a land fill. The latest blast came from an unlikely source, The Army Times”, which conducted a poll showing that 64% of enlisted men think Rumsfeld should tender his resignation immediately. It would be impossible to find a more conservative publication than the Army Times or a more compelling reason for stepping down. Still, the recalcitrant Rumsfeld shows no sign of caving in or loosening his withered grip on the levers of power. Earlier in the week, an equally devastating article appeared in the New York Times “Criticism of Rumsfeld Widens to Young Officers” echoing that younger officers are just as sick of the glib Rummy as their elders. One anonymous officer noted, “We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq….The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels." Confidence in the Secretary is deflating more rapidly than the air leaving a punctured tire. Most of the grumbling about Rumsfeld seems to center on his two salient attributes; arrogance and ineptitude, the twin-axels of predictable failure. There isn’t one part of the 3 year occupation he hasn’t mishandled, mismanaged or completely bungled. His tenure at the War Dept represents the greatest collapse of leadership in the history of the republic. You’re doin’ a heck-uva job, Rummy. It was Rumsfeld who refused to commit enough troops to the original invasion making it impossible to establish order; just as it was Rumsfeld who left the armories and munitions dumps unattended, disbanded the Iraqi military, and dismantled the government through de-Ba’athification. All these proved to be costly and avoidable mistakes which made reconstruction difficult and security impossible. Rummy has brushed aside such idle criticism saying, “Stuff happens”. Rumsfeld’s only success has been in alienating the Iraqi people by authorizing the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib as well as the gratuitous destruction of Falluja; two events which galvanized the Iraqi resistance and savaged any chance of winning over Iraqi “hearts and minds”. Now, Iraq is in the throes of deadly guerilla war with casualties mounting by the day and not a glimmer of light in the tunnel. The responsibility for the deteriorating situation mainly rests with one man, Don Rumsfeld, the primary architect of America’s desert “cakewalk”. . Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton's summarized Rumsfeld’s abysmal performance best when he said that Rumsfeld was "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq."' Lees verder:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12872.htm