Is Iraq like Vietnam? Dubious history.

In the last post, we examined the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?" , concluding it is the wrong question to ask about our involvement in Iraq. In the next two posts we address the President's analogy directly.

The President's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, made this comparison of Iraq to Vietnam:

" ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'"

Contrary to the President's assertion, it is indeed a "mistakable" legacy, dubious history, and a poor analogy. Particularly if this assertion is meant to communicate, as has been asserted by many bloggers and columnists, that the 1975 Congressional vote to cutoff funding for Vietnam was the primary cause of the death of millions of Cambodians at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. The first step in deconstructing the President's version of history, is to separate the Vietnamese and Cambodian horrors that followed our withdrawal.

For the purposes of this post, we will stipulate that a direct consequence of the 1975 vote was hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese displaced, killed, and imprisoned after Saigon fell. These were the 'boat people' and victims of 're-education' camps' that the President references. It did happen but it did not have to happen that way. We could have planned better to support those who supported us. But as bad as it was, it still must be seen in the context of a fifteen year war, where two to three million Vietnamese and 52,000 Americans lost their lives. Such is the grisly calculus of war. Continuing American involvement after 1973 or 1975 does not mean that fewer Vietnamese lives or even the lives of our Vietnamese supporters would have been lost. After 15 years of American involvement in the fighting in Vietnam, it is hard to imagine how a better outcome would have resulted from an additional two or five or ten or fifteen more years of American intervention, as implied by this speech.

Nevertheless, what happened in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon happened to our shame. But the blame does not fall exclusively on the shoulder of the Democratic Congress that voted to cut off funds. That guilt must also be shared by the Republican Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of State, and administration that set the wheels in motion for that vote and its consequences.

Consider this transcript of a taped conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office in August 1972:

Kissinger: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three- to four-month period, we have pushed [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu over the brink... even the Chinese won't like that. I mean, they'll pay verbal-- verbally, they'll like it--

Nixon: But it'll worry them.

Kissinger: But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won't help us all that much because our opponents will say we should've done it three years ago.

Nixon: I know.

Kissinger: So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which-- after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn.

Actual events did not stay precisely on Kissinger's schedule. This conversation took place in August, 1972. The Paris Peace Accord was signed five months later in January, 1973. Saigon fell a little over two years later, in April, 1975. Duplicity and domestic political gamesmanship by a Republican President and his Secretary of State set the timetable for the fall of Saigon. The Democratic Congress was an accessory to the crime. There is plenty of blame to go around.

As an interesting aside, we learned in September of last year, courtesy of Bob Woodward, that Henry Kissinger was again on the case:

"He said Kissinger, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, has been telling Bush and Cheney that 'in Iraq', he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

Kissinger's views apparently had evolved by November, when asked in a BBC interview "whether military victory in Iraq was still possible?" Kissinger responded:

"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."

I found no comfort in learning that Henry Kissinger was also advising this administration, but I digress. Back to the President's dubious history lesson.

The use of the words 'killing fields' by the President in this same context (Congressional vote for withdrawal equates to bloodbath and massacre) is a bridge too far. Those words are a specific reference to the massacres that took place in Cambodia under the Pol Pol led Khmer Rouge regime. The assertion that there is a direct cause and effect link between Congress voting to cut off funds for Vietnam in 1975, and the millions who died in Cambodia is dubious at best. Nevertheless, it has been seized on by many right-of-center bloggers and columnists as a justification for continuing our occupation of Iraq. Examples:

• "Vietnam, as in we fled and millions are now dead." - PeejZ at RightVoices
• "Millions died and many countries were in turmoil.Once more, it seems the ‘lessons of Vietnam’ need to be learnt once more, but not the lessons the left have us believe." - Fairfacts at No Minister
• "So Sirik Matak stayed in Phnom Penh and a month later was killed by the Khmer Rouge, along with about 2 million other people." - Mark Steyn in OC Register
• "Things were worse in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge liquidated over a third of the population, over two million people were murdered, while the rest of the population were used as slave labor. That is what happened when we abandoned South Vietnam, at the insistence of the Democrats who ran Congress." - Squatty at Kowabunga
• "...withdrawal does not mean putting the whole sorry mess behind us and returning to peace. Rather, it means great loss of life and of American credibility" - DC Innes at Principalities and Power
• "if we let Saigon happen to Baghdad. Let the death camps, the boat people and three decades of war happen all over again." - Lee at Postpolitical
• "2 million Cambodians were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge as a result of America's betrayal in Southeast Asia" - Jon Roth at GOP Bloggers
• "By injecting the aftermath of Vietnam into the post-Iraq War debate, President Bush opened the refrigerator door — and that sent the apologists for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot scurrying." - Don Surber at DailyMail.com

Let us start with few indisputable facts. In 1975 a Democratically controlled Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam. That is a fact. Later that year Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. That is a fact. In 1975-79 as many as two million Cambodians died at the hands of their own government under the despotic hand of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government. That is fact.

The fallacy is stopping with those facts and ignoring others when drawing the conclusion that the Congressional vote in 1975 is responsible for the death of two million Cambodians. The bloggers linked above do not stop there, but claim that Congress cutting off funding for Vietnam in 1975 is pretty much responsible for every bad thing that has happened in the world since 1975, including the Iranian hostage crisis, both Iraq wars, Saddam Hussein, 9/11, Valdimir Putin's poor fishing technique, and Rex Grossman unable to hold on to the football in last years Superbowl, et.al.

The problem with that formulation, is that these bloggers ignore inconvenient facts that undermine the argument. With those facts, we can come up with a whole host of other reasons for what happened in Cambodia. Take your pick:

• In 1975 Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1972 President Nixon and Henry Kissinger planned a withdrawal they knew would lead to the failure of the South Vietnamese government and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 197o Cambodian leader Prince Sihaounok was deposed by pro-American general Lon-Nol in a coup widely understood to have been engineered by the CIA. He was perceived as an American puppet further fueling the Khmer Rouge insurgency which ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1969 President Nixon ordered the carpet bombing of supply lines in Cambodia, with over 540,000 tons of American bombs killing between 140,000 and 500,000 civilians, fueling popular Cambodian support for the Khmer Rouge that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 t the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1968 with 25,000 American dead in Vietnam, SECDEF Robert MacNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war, quit or was fired after informing LBJ that the war was not winnable. He chose to not share that insight with the American people until writing his memoirs some 30 years later. As a consequence, the war continued for another five years costing 27,000 American lives and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.

Which of these where most responsible for the Cambodian massacres? Who knows? Yes, there was a bloodbath in Cambodia and there was suffering in Vietnam. But it is not clear that there was a direct causal relationship between the cutoff in funds in 1975 and the bloodbath in Cambodia. It is not clear that we would have or could have prevented the genocide in Cambodia if we stayed. It is easier to make the case that the bloodbath was not a consequence of leaving Vietnam too early (after over a decade of war and 52,000 American lives), but because we left Vietnam too late. Indeed, one can as easily extract a lesson from Vietnam that the risk of a bloodbath increases the longer we stay. There is no historical certainty here.

The assertion that the "killing fields" in Cambodia were a consequence of a Congressional vote to cut off funds for Vietnam is bad history, and a false analogy for Iraq. Obviously, if the history itself is wrong, extracting an analogous lesson for Iraq from that falsity is complete fantasy. Does this mean there is no risk of a bloodbath in Iraq should we leave? Of course not. That risk is real. As we begin our withdrawal from Iraq, as we inevitably must, we should strive to do so in a responsible way and minimize the likelihood of a bloodbath.

A bloodbath in Iraq is not certain, but there is no guarantee that a bloodbath will not occur.

There is no guarantee that we can prevent a bloodbath from happening.

Not if we stay.

Not if we go.

For the next and last post in this series, we will revisit the question of what lessons were learned from Vietnam. We will reference the lessons that were researched, codified, and understood by the military strategists that studied that war, and the military leaders who were soldiers in that war. Soldiers like General Colin Powell.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Colin Powell, 1975, Vietnam, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Henry Kissinger, Powell Doctrine.

Powell Agonistes

Not too long ago, Colin Powell was legitimately described as the most trusted man in American politics. Today he is perceived to struggle in a battle to rehabilitate his credibility, the most recent effort being a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert. I missed the show itself, as I was returning from an extended fishing holiday in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. [How was the fishing you ask? Quite good thank you. We had several fish fries comprised of some nice bass and plenty of panfish. I even managed to catch and release a couple of brookies despite my general incompetence with a fly rod.]

Upon my return, I got a flavor for the reaction to Powell's interview, when I re-immersed myself in the political pool by taking a deep dive with a quadruple twisting plunge on MSNBC, watching Tucker, Matthews, Olberman and Scarborough back-to-back-to-back-to-back. All had pointed questions for Powell.

CARLSON: "Powell‘s willingness to vote for a Democrat in ‘08 is interesting as well as the obvious rebuke he gave the Bush administration. But consider the opposite angle, though he has escaped the deep public anger absorbed by the president, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, any number of others in this administration, Colin Powell was the chief salesman of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. So the question is, why would Barack Obama want his advice in the first place?"

MATTHEWS: "Why didn‘t Colin Powell just resign? Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has criticized this administration since he left office. But why did he salute the boss if he did not fully support the war? Where was Powell‘s tough talk against the administration when it would have counted?"

ROBACH (substituting for Olberman): "We know that Colin Powell did not advocate going to war, but he tells Tim Russert that once the president decided to do it, he, Powell, was with him all the way. Have we ever heard Colin Powell say that the president and that he ultimately made a mistake in that decision?"

HUFFINGTON (Guest on Scarborough Country): "So many people will tell you again and again that, if it wasn‘t for Colin Powell putting his enormous credibility behind the selling of the war, they would not have been behind the war. So I think it‘s really sad. It‘s a little bit like watching George Tenet, you know, come out, after all the damage has been done, and then singing a very different song. And, you know, of course, it‘s great that he wants to close down Guantanamo, not tomorrow but this afternoon, but where was that kind of moral authority when the country needed it? "

DWSUWF finds these questions for Colin Powell to be disingeuous, and a distraction from the important comments that Powell made in the interview. The questions are echoed and amplified by disngenuous bloggers on both the right and left. [SIDEBAR: Don't you just love the word "disingenuous"? It is such a great high-brow way for DWSUWF to say they are all "so completely full of sh*t their eyes are brown."]

Colin Powell is speaking out. This is exactly what we need him to do. The Powell Doctrine, forged from the lessons learned in Viet Nam, served this country well in the first gulf war and as a guiding set of principles for our involvement in other military conflicts. The irony of Colin Powell being a primary enabler for the US involvement in a conflict that so clearly violated the tenets of the doctrine that bears his name has not been lost on us. The only one who can solve the riddle of of Colin Powell is Powell himself.

Powell has been a recurring topic at DWSUWF, and taken to task for failing to contribute to the national dialog prior to the 2006 mid-term elections. In September, DWSUWF posed the question "whether Colin Powell might, in the judgement of history, carry the label of being to Iraq what McNamara was to Vietnam". A few weeks later, still questioning his silence, DWSUWF posted an Open Letter to Colin Powell, concluding with this:

"Your experience with the military, with this administration, with the field of conflict in Iraq, with both failed and successful US conflicts, means you are uniquely qualified to help the American people find the right path through this thicket, by shedding some light on the problem. Permit me to be blunt. As an American citizen that supported this war to a large extent because of your support of it, and your eloquent arguments before United Nations in January of 2003, I do not find it acceptable for you to withhold your assessment of the status and outlook for this war now. Quite frankly, you owe this country the benefit of your honest assessment now. You owe us your complete, unexpurgated, unvarnished view."

In all honesty, DWSUWF did not expect Colin Powell to respond to a letter from this blog, and was not surprised that he did not. Regardless, his statements and appearances in the MSM over the last few months have addressed many of the very concerns expressed in that letter. It is critically important for Powell's evolving perspective on the war he helped sell to be publicly aired, as the country struggles to find a way to bring it to an end. He provides a unique and important perspective that is worthy of careful consideration by all Americans.

DWSUWF highlighted more recent Colin Powell quotes in these posts (Thank you Mr. Powell, One more Rum & Mac for the road) while commenting on his 12/17/06 interview with Bob Scheifer on CBS News' Face the Nation:

SCHIEFFER: "Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense in the history of this country, or words to that effect. What is your assessment?

Mr. POWELL (paraphrased): Well, that's the vice president's judgement. As we all know, Rumsfeld had his nose so far up Cheney's fat ass, I am surprised they could pull him out to fire him.

More Powell quotes:

"So if it's grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing."

"...this looks like a civil war, and we ought to call it that."

"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work..."

"...I think you have to talk to a country like Syria.

"The current active Army is not large enough, and the Marine Corps is not large enough, for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform."

"... we are a little less safe in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems."

"But sooner or later, you have to... begin the drawdown of US forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year, at least the beginning of this. You cannot--we cannot walk away."

To this list we can now add Powell's comments from his Sunday (6/10/06) appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert:

"The current strategy to deal with it... —the military surge, our part of the surge under General Petraeus—the only thing it can do is put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of civil war stew... The solution has to emerge from the other two legs, the Iraqi political actions and reconciliation, and building up the Iraqi security and police forces. And those two legs are not going well."

...at the end of the day, when this civil war resolves itself, as every civil war eventually does resolve itself, one way or the other, and we see a government emerge that does represent the interests of its people, then maybe that’s the best success we can hope for, even though it might not be a government... we would have designed in Philadelphia based on Jeffersonian principles."

" ...the president is not satisfied with the way in which the war has been managed. Now, you can, you can move the deck chairs around, and you can bring in new people and you can change the organizational arrangements, but, ultimately, the president has the responsibility. "

"Once the government in Baghdad came down, everything came down. And it was our responsibility then, under international law as the occupying authority as well as the liberators, to be responsible for restoring order, and we didn’t have enough troops there to restore that order nor did we have the political understanding of our obligation to restore that order."

"... the case that we took to the world and the case that we took to the American people rested not just in his human rights abuses or his cheating on the Oil for Food program, it rested on the real and present danger of weapons of mass destruction that he could use against his neighbors, or terrorists could use against us. That was the precipitating issue in my judgment, and it turned out those weapons were not there... they all came to the conclusion there are none, and they’re not buried in the ground, they weren’t shipped to Syria. We got it wrong."

"Guantanamo has become a major, major problem for... the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I’d close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system."

Powell did not back away from his support of the war in 2003. Consequently the unasked and unanswered question for Colin Powell still goes begging: General Powell, even accepting that the decision was based on wrong intelligence, how do you justify your suppport for a military action that unambiguous failed to meet the tests of the Powell Doctrine?

Colinn Powell put his reputation on the line, performing in the role of Huckster In Chief, pitching the war in Iraq during his January, 2003 address to the United Nations. Notwithstanding, Powell is now making strong, direct statements that provide a valuable and important contribution to the dialog on Iraq, from a voice that is uniquely qualified to offer observations, recommendations and opinions. His MSM appearances sharpen the focus of his critical view of the administration's handling of the war, as well as his own complicity in its outcome. His words are a valuable resource for those Americans struggling to understand our remaining limited options in Iraq.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, Iraq, surge, Donald Rumsfeld, Powell Doctrine.

Bartender! One more Rum & Mac for the road.

Time Magazine Covers from 2004 and 1966

It is closing time here at the Repeating History Bar. We are way past final call, but I'm a regular, and the bartender slipped me one more Rum & Mac for the road. Hey, I'm a big tipper, he takes care of me. I didn't think much of this drink when I started sipping it here, but after pounding down doubles all night, I'm beginning to appreciate the peculiar character of this drink more and more.

Speaking at Donald Rumsfeld's retirement ceremony, Dick Cheney hailed Rumsfeld as "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had." In Sunday's interview with Bob Schieffer on on CBS News' Face the Nation, Colin Powell declined to agree:

SCHIEFFER: "Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense in the history of this country, or words to that effect. What is your assessment?

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgment. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq."

Sometimes, a judicious amount of alcohol helps one to see things more clearly. With the copious quantities of R&M's I have ingested here at the RHB, I have developed a GWB-like capacity to peer into the soul of my fellow man and read their innermost thoughts. For the benefit of my loyal reader, a transcript of what Colin Powell was really saying:

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgement. As we all know, Rumsfeld had his nose so far up Cheney's fat ass, I am surprised they could pull him out to fire him. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. I wouldn't put Don ahead of Bill Cohen, Les Aspin or William Perry either. Now that I think about it , he wasn't better than Frank Carlucci or Harold Brown. Of course, Don couldn't carry the jockstrap of James Forrestall, George Marshall, Bob Lovett, Charles Wilson or Thomas Gates. And I'd definitely put Elliot Richardson, Melvin Laird, Neil McElroy and James Schlessinger ahead of Don SecDef-wise. Clark Clifford ... now thats close, but I'd have to give Clifford the edge. McNamara! Thats it! He is a marginally better secretary of defense than McNamara. No doubt. Don was better than Bob. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq. I just hope I don't find myself burning in historical hell right next to Rumsfeld for all eternity. "

Bartender, could you freshen this up? Whenever I drink R&M's I feel the need to ramble on a bit about our outgoing Secretary of Defense. You know, I am not the only one that noticed the parallels between Don and good ol' Bob. Richard Galli of the Galli Report scooped DWSUWF by several months with a press release last June - excerpted here :

Bush Accepts Rumsfeld Resignation, Hires Robert McNamara

"I have a Thinkpad now" confident Vietnam warrior assures skeptics - "George Bush informed Donald Rumsfeld yesterday that one of his resignation letters had been discovered under a pile of unread security briefings, and the President had belatedly accepted it...In a statement released shortly after the press conference, Robert McNamara said he will be honored to answer his country’s call to service once again. “I have spent the last 30 years of my life educating the American people about the War in Vietnam without ever being held accountable for it,” McNamara said. “I have the experience and the skill set that the White House desperately needs right now.”

Hey! Is that Robert Scheer from TruthDig at end of the bar? He must be drinking Rum & Macs too - You know he's got the same mind-reading skills as me - look at this column where he's channeling Rumsfeld - gives me the willies just to think about it...

One Last Lie for the Road
"Did I write a secret memo saying that I don’t believe in this thing anymore? You bet! But you can’t let the public in on that and just cut-and-run. Jeez, how would that look for the Rummy Legacy? ... I’m not going down that negative road that finished off old Bob McNamara’s legacy. What a disappointment—this is a guy who could sell us the Vietnam War and then blows it by suddenly getting all squishy about the truth when he’s long retired. Jeez Louise, he was once my role model. No secretary of defense ever sold a losing war better. They think I’ve got a frozen smile, just look at those old pictures of Mac flying into Saigon and giving an upbeat assessment in the midst of carnage. Talk about whistling past the graveyard. And he stayed on the “We’re about to turn the corner” message right to the end when LBJ fired him, just like Georgie Porgie did me. "

Ah yes. The confidential memo. One last unexepected and somewhat astonishing bit of synchronicity between the outgoing SecDefs - 39 years apart, writing hand-wringing memos to their respective commanders in chief, outlining options for a failing war policy, and getting canned shortly thereafter. I pull a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket, smooth it out on the surface of the bar and wave it in the bartenders face. "Look at this!" I said. "I couldn't believe when I heard about the Rumsfeld memo. I had to see for myself how it compared to McNamara's 'Draft Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson' ... I actually looked up the orginal text of both messages to compare them." The bartender, seemingly unimpressed, topped off my glass and retreated to the other end of the bar, leaving the paper behind. "McNamara was a lot wordier." I mumbled under my breath to no one in particular. "But ... definite similarities... definite... similarities...."

MCNAMARA MEMO:
"Subject: Future Actions in Vietnam - May 19, 1967"
RUMSFELD MEMO:
"Subject: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action - Nov 6, 2006"

MCNAMARA: "This memorandum is written at a time when there appears to be no attractive course of action. The probabilities are that Hanoi has decided not to negotiate until the American electorate has been heard in November 1968. Continuation of our present moderate policy, while avoiding a larger war, will not change Hanoi's mind, so is not enough to satisfy the American people; increased force levels and actions against the North are likewise unlikely to change Hanoi's mind, and are likely to get us in even deeper in Southeast Asia and into a serious confrontation, if not war, with China and Russia; and we are not willing to yield. So we must choose among imperfect alternatives."
RUMSFELD: "The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options."

MCNAMARA: "The Vietnam war is unpopular in this country. It is becoming increasingly unpopular as it escalates--causing more American casualties, more fear of its growing into a wider war, more privation of the domestic sector, and more distress at the amount of suffering being visited on the non-combatants in Vietnam, South and North. Most Americans do not know how we got where we are, and most, without knowing why, but taking advantage of hindsight, are convinced that somehow we should not have gotten this deeply in. All want the war ended and expect their President to end it. Successfully. Or else."
RUMSFELD: "Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi Government and the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made)."

MCNAMARA: "Publicly, emphasize consistently that the sole US objective in Vietnam has been and is to permit the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future, and declare that we have already either denied or offset the North Vietnamese intervention and that after the September elections in Vietnam we will have achieved success. The necessary steps having been taken to deny the North the ability to take over South Vietnam and an elected government sitting in Saigon, the South will be in position, albeit imperfect, to start the business of producing a full-spectrum government in South Vietnam."
RUMSFELD: "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist... Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."

MCNAMARA [Course A - Not Recommended] : "... neither military defeat nor military victory is in the cards, with or without the large added deployments, and that the price of the large added deployments and the strategy of Course A will be to expand the war dangerously."
RUMSFELD [Below The Line - Not Recommended] : "Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially."

MCNAMARA: "Move the newly elected Saigon government well beyond its National Reconciliation program to a political settlement with the non-Communist members of the NLF--to try to arrange a ceasefire and to reach an accommodation with the large number of South Vietnamese who are under the VC banner; to accept the non-Communist members of the NLF as members of an opposition political party and, if necessary, to accept their individual participation in the national government--in sum, a settlement to transform the members of the VC from military opponents to political opponents."
RUMSFELD: "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period... Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it."

MCNAMARA [Recommended Course of Action - Course B] : "Limit force increases to no more than 30,000; avoid extending the ground conflict beyond the borders of South Vietnam; and concentrate the bombing on the infiltration routes south of 20 degrees. Unless the military situation worsens dramatically, add no more than 9 battalions to the approved program of 87 battalions....A part of this course would be a termination of bombing in the Red River basin unless military necessity required it, and a concentration of all sorties in North Vietnam on the infiltration routes in the neck of North Vietnam... We recommend Course B because it has the combined advantages of being a lever toward negotiations and toward ending the war on satisfactory terms, of helping our general position with the Soviets, of improving our image in the eyes of international opinion, of reducing the danger of confrontation with China and with the Soviet Union, and of reducing US losses."
RUMSFELD [Recommended Options - Above the Line]: "Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq....Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF... Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government.
GATES: - Recommended Course of Action- TBD

The glass is empty. No one else is here. I steady myself on the bar as I roll off the stool. After the room slows to a manageable shimmer, I make my way to the door and out into the cold night fog. "This is not going to feel good in the morning." I think to myself, adding - "I'm not drinking those anymore."

Hangover Update 12/21/06: 06/11/07 Corrected Typos
I didn't drive in that condition. Still got caught in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, ,Robert McNamara, Iraq, surge, Donald Rumsfeld, Powell Doctrine.

Bartender! - Another Rum & Mac. Make it a double.

We are back at the Repeating History Bar, and the drink of the day is once again the Rum & Mac on the rocks.

I am updating and reposting this, as it is even more relevant now than when I originally (and incorrectly) stated on Labor day that Rumsfeld's resignation/firing was imminent. The point of this post was that Rumsfeld has presided over such breathtaking incompetence in the prosecution of the Iraq occupation, that the Republicans could not maintain a majority in Congress if he retained his post. Now, here we are, two months later, Rumsfeld is still in his post, and the Republicans are days away from losing at least one house of Congress. I was wrong about the resignation timing, but right about the consequences.

On a compaign swing this week, President Bush stated that "he wanted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the top architect of the war... to remain with him until the end of his presidency". With that statement, George W. Bush pounded the last nail in the coffin of three Republican Senate candidates who have called for Rumsfeld to go: Mike Dewine of Ohio, Tom Kean in NJ, Cynthia Theilen in Hawaii.

His statement reinforces the key point of this post. George W. Bush practices a private sector hands-off management style that (when implemented correctly) demands accountability from and replacement of direct reports that fail to meet agreed objectives. Problem being, despite his frequent empty rhetoric about accountability, this President has not held Donald Rumsfeld accountable for his failure in Iraq. This simply passes all understanding, and is another reason why it is important that a divided government/Democratic congress be elected on Tuesday.

On Monday, November 6, an editorial will appear in the "must read" newspapers of our military - the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. It begins with this quote ...

"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth." - Marguerite Higgins

... and ends with this admonition:

"Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt. This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth: Donald Rumsfeld must go."

What more need be said? We need a Congress that will accept the responsibility that the executive branch has abandoned, and impose the oversight and accountability on Rumsfeld and the execution of this war that the executive branch has failed to implement.

The original Labor Day post:

Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense '61-'68) from "The Fog of War":

"I had this enormous respect and affection, loyalty, to both Kennedy and Johnson. But at the end, Johnson and I found ourselves poles apart... And I said to a very close and dear friend of mine, Kay Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post:"Even to this day, Kay, I don't know whether I quit or was fired?" She said, "You're out of your mind. Of course you were fired." ... Something had to give. There was a rumor that I was facing a mental breakdown. I was under such pressure and stress. I don't think that was the case at all. But it was a really traumatic departure. That's the way it ended. Except for one thing: he awarded me the Medal of Freedom in a very beautiful ceremony at the White House."

Let's see, a President caught between the "rock" of growing unpopularity of a costly war, and the "hard place" of affection and loyalty for the Secretary of Defense / architect of that war, and completely convinced of the correctness of his own administration's actions in that war.

I have seen this movie before, and I remember how it ends.

Rumsfeld is history. It is only a question of time and timing. Rumsfeld resigns as soon as a replacement is identified and agreed. Is it politic to wait until after the mid-terms, or to act now? My guess - He resigns within the week and (since we are already out on a limb, might as well climb out on the small branches) John McCain is the new Secretary of Defense.

The Democrats are ramping up for a Rumsfeld Rip-Fest. A non-binding resolution declaring "No-Confidence" in the Secretary of Defense will be offered by Democrats in Congress on Wednesday. The outrage is being rehearsed and the purple prose is being prepared as we speak. Democrats are salivating to take their pound of Rummy flesh while demonstrating their oratorial skills on you-tube, c-span, and the nightly news (in that order).

Rove and the Republicans know exactly what is coming, and no one has ever accused them of being politically naive. What better way to take the air out of the expanding Democratic political balloon than by announcing Rumsfeld's resignation before the speechifying starts? What better way to respond to all those speeches, than to keep them on the shelf? Paradoxically, the shit-storm around Rumsfeld's recent comments has handed the administration a perfect face saving opportunity to strike a potentially game changing blow in the 2006 political season. Rumsfeld can play the misunderstood, misquoted, patriotic, loyal soldier, taking a bullet for the team, while the media takes the blame. Here is his speech: - "Even though my words have been misreported and misrepresented, I cannot allow my words and my presence to become a distraction, and a detriment to the important work facing the President and the American people in this war against terror." The President expresses his regrets, and appoints a universally respected unassailable warrior in his place. In a couple of weeks, Rumsfeld gets his medal, and we move on.

Will it happen? Just ask yourself - Can the Republicans maintain the majority with two months of continuous Rumsfeld/Iraq War bashing between now and the election? On the other hand, can they possibly pull it out with a "fresh start" and a new voice calling for a new direction on war?

Done Deal.Rum & Mac on the cover of Time magazine.
Coincidently each cover appeared two years before their respective resignations.

Politics are the wrong reason for this move , but it is still the right move for our country. We really need a change. We need new thinking from our leadership on this war and we need it right now. Take this example from Rumsfeld's speech: "The extremists themselves call Iraq the “epicenter” in the War on Terror." This just begs the question (and I mean fully prostrate plaintive begging) of exactly Why did the extremists not think that way, before we occupied the country? But lest I be accused of "moral and intellectual confusion", let us just call this one more instance in the continuing series of what Rumsfeld and other adminstration officials now seem perfectly comfortable saying - to whit: "mistakes were made" in the prosecution of the war.

So let's get to the right reason for getting rid of Rumsfeld. It is understandable in the "fog of war" that "mistakes are made". The American people can accept that. But when the stakes are thousands of American soldiers lives, tens of thousands of civilian Iraqi lives, hundred of billions of dollars, and staring into the abyss of a failed policy, it is not acceptable for there to be no consquences when "mistakes are made". We are not talking about small mistakes or a minor misjudgement here:

"... civilian officials in the Pentagon were so convinced that these "follow-on forces" wouldn't be needed in Iraq that they thought they could withdraw 50,000 troops from Iraq in June 2003; 50,000 more in July; and a final 50,000 in August. By September 2003, Rumsfeld and his aides thought, there would be very few American troops left in Iraq."

This is a breathtakingly large mistake. This is not, as Rumsfeld said in his Tuesday speech simply a matter of "As the nature of the threat and the conflict in Iraq has changed over these past several years, so have the tactics and the deployments. " This was a big-time, world class screw-up, and someone has to be accountable and take the fall.

Bush and Cheney are elected, so barring impeachment, that only leaves the Donald. The change can be justified purely on the failure of tactics/strategy which I do not need to further belabor here. Anton Kaiser, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and Vietnam vet, does a much better job than I can explaining "Why Rumsfeld Should Be Fired For not learning the lessons of previous conflicts."

There is another reason, and it has to do with the President's management style. His leadership has been likened to a private sector CEO . This quote summarizes his style as well as any "Bush's 10 common-sense leadership lessons: Hire smart, build trust, talk straight, and leave aides alone..."

This is a classic private sector management style. If you get the right team in place, it is highly effective. I can speak from personal experience, having managed large and small teams most of my professional career. My greatest success in business was using this style when I had a great team working for me. They made me look like a genius and left plenty of time for golf and pontificating on how to win in business.

The problem centers on the word "accountability", a word that GWB uses frequently, but does not seeem to apply to his direct reports. With that management style, "say what you'll do, do what you say" is the mantra. It is incumbent to have clear agreed objectives, and if the objectives are not met, immediate replacement is expected. If you, as the leader, are not going to get deep in the details yourself, then your only tool for managing performance is changing personnel when agreed objectives are not met. If you do not, then you have abrogated your leadership responsibility.

I am not going to go into details of "coulda, shoulda, woulda" in Iraq. That particular dead horse is being continually beaten every day throughout the blogosphere. George Will explains why "Regarding Iraq, there will not soon be an Eisenhower moment. " (i.e. just stop the war - as in Korea). My point is simple. Regardless of the specifics of how we got here, regardless of how long we need to stay, it is absolutely clear, that we are not now where we expected to be in Iraq, and the same guys that did the planning and then executed the plan that got us here are still in charge.

Accountability demands that Bush replace Rumsfeld. Sometimes change for the sake of change is the right answer. Bush put Rumsfeld in the pilot seat of a plane that took off from New York and was flying to Paris, but instead, landed in San Francisco. The fact that he is still flying the plane, is a reflection of a boss that does not understand the meaning of the word accountibility.

Since the President does not understand this principle of accountability, it must be applied another way:

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Just Vote Divided.

Technorati tags: divided government, Iraq, McNamara, 2006 election,democrat,republican,Rumsfeld, Vietnam, Bush, military.

Iraq ,Vietnam, McNamara, Powell, McCain, Warner, Graham

In a previous post, I drew a historical comparison between Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld. While the prediction in that post has yet to be realized (Runsfeld quitting or being fired) I do think the historical comparison is apt. At the time I wondered if I was making the right comparison and whether Colin Powell might, in the judgement of history, carry the label of being to Iraq what McNamara was to Vietnam.

In 1995, Robert McNamara (widely referred to as "the architect of the Vietnam War") writing in his memoir "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam", revealed that as early as 1967 (with 25,000 American dead) he no longer believed that America could win the war in Vietnam, and as a direct consequence of expressing that view, resigned (or was fired) from the LBJ administration. This McNamara quote is excerpted from Harold P. Ford's analysis "Thoughts Engendered by Robert McNamara's In Retrospect":

"We were wrong, terribly wrong... Enemy morale has not broken . . . . It appears that [the enemy] can more than replace his losses by infiltration from North Vietnam and recruitment in South Vietnam. . . . Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism and sabotage have increased in scope and intensity. . . . In essence, we find ourselves--from the point of view of the important war (for the [hearts and minds] of the people)--no better, and if anything worse off. This important war must be fought and won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the beginning . . ." Robert McNamara -"In Retrospect" (pp. 262-263).

Neither McNamara nor LBJ chose to share that insight with the American public. Ultimately it took 50,000 American lives for a majority of Americans to learn that their government could not be trusted on the reasons for, nor the "light at the end of the tunnel" progress in, Vietnam. It is reasonable to posit, that if McNamara had recognized in 1968 that his loyalty was owed first to the American people, and second to the LBJ administration, had communicated what he knew then to the American people, we might have seen a better end, a quicker end, and fewer deaths and casualties in Vietnam.

Full disclosure: I supported President Bush in the decision to invade and change the regime in Iraq. My support was based on two factors. One, I believe that in matters of security of the United States, the commander-in-chief automatically gets the benefit of the doubt from the American people until shown not to deserve it. In 2003, the commander-in-chief said there was an imminent threat from Iraq that required immediate military action. That is his job. That is his first responsibility. If there is a threat to the U.S., he is obligated to respond, and we are obligated to support him. The second factor, was when Colin Powell, a man I respected, backed the administration's argument in a speech to the United Nations. That combination, at that time, was good enough for me.

Subsequently, the stated reason given by the administration for the invasion has changed and the rationale that was the basis for the action proved to be false. Colin Powell has since recanted on much of the evidence he offered to the United Nations, and subsequently resigned or was fired by the administration. In addition to the obligation to protect the United States, the Commander-in-Chief has an obligation to be right about the reasons given to the American people to go to war. The commander-in-chief also has an obligation to prosecute a military objective with clarity and competence. Failing these obligations, the administration should not expect, and should not receive the support of the American people.

This administration has given Americans like myself ample reason to be skeptical of their ability to garner accurate intelligence, to interpret the intelligence, to develop and promote a correct course of action based on that intelligence, or even their ability to execute a war policy or plan to secure a specific military objective. As a direct result, Americans have correctly withdrawn their support, but with the unfortunate consequence that this administration has been rendered impotent in the face of threats like those presented by Iran or North Korea.

Colin Powell enabled the administration to garner the support needed to put us on this course. I suspect that Colin Powell, out of misplaced loyalty, like McNamara on Vietnam, failed to be forthright and honest with the American people about Iraq. Should Colin Powell, in future memoirs, like McNamara, proclaim that he knew that the Iraq occupation was a wrong policy, he will, like McNamara, have blood on his hands for every day that passes between the time that he recognized the mistake, and the day he finally comes clean with the American people. It took McNamara 27 years. How long will it take Powell?

Where am I going with this? In regard to Colin Powell, I am going here:

This is a facsimile of a message sent from Colin Powell to John McCain in support of the congressional opposition to President Bush's call for "clarification" of how we will apply the Geneva Convention to enemy combatants. This is a clear statement of unequivocal support by Powell for John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, who are leading the charge in Congress to return traditional American values to the debate on how we, as Americans choose to treat enemy combatants. This debate, has prompted paranoid suspicion from the left ("I’m suspicious over the outrage by Republicans because they usually twist and shout for a while and then rubber stamp Bush.") and incoherent, irrational, immoral screeds from the right ("We first need to worry about winning the war. Then we can start worrying about the morality of the whole thing"). These leaders, military men all, Republicans all, Vietnam veterans, but first and foremost, patriotic Americans, have put their loyalty to country ahead of their loyalty to party or to this administration on this issue. This is an important step to reassert the constitutional war-making and oversight role of Congress. If the administration had correctly come to Congress to legislate the power he was seeking in the first place, there would be no need to rush this legislation through now. It deserves careful deliberation and will now get it.

"GOP Infighting on Detainees Intensifies" by Peter Baker - Washington Post

"Bush is pressing for legislation endorsing his leadership against terrorism, including warrantless surveillance of overseas telephone calls, military commissions to try enemy combatants and expansive rules permitting tough interrogations. The most explosive debate centers on how the Geneva Conventions should apply to U.S. intelligence officers, who captured, held and questioned terrorism suspects in secret overseas CIA prisons for years until the last 14 detainees were transferred recently into military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Supreme Court ruled in June that U.S. detainees fall under the Geneva Conventions, which require that wartime captives be "treated humanely" and ban "outrages upon personal dignity."

Ariana Huffington's post "On Fear, Yellow Cars, Colin Powell, and Redemption" reflect my thinking about Powell on this issue:

"I've found Colin Powell's sudden display of fearlessness particularly significant... Powell framed the debate in the most profound way possible, as a moral question not a legal one... It was a bold move for Powell, a potentially redemptive line drawn in the sand for a public figure whose reputation has fallen on hard times in the wake of the Iraq debacle...Whether it was motivated by a desire to be a team player, a loyal staffer, a good soldier, or a fear of not pleasing his boss, Powell's stomach-turning role in selling the war to the world led to those 80 minutes he spent in front of the UN Security Council throwing his considerable reputation behind the administration's ginned-up case for invasion. Definitely not his finest hour. They turned him from a can't-miss presidential contender into a man who has, like the country he has so loyally served, seemingly ceded the moral high ground. His unequivocal rebuke of his commander-in-chief is a powerful step toward retaking that hill. Let's hope that fearlessness is as contagious as fear."

"Step" is the operative word. With his note, Powell has taken a step on the path to redemption but only a step. Powell has yet to face the American people and fully explain what happened in '03, what he did and what he did not do, to help or hinder a bad decision to go to war. It is my fervent hope, that it will not take Colin Powell 27 years, as it did McNamara, to finally reveal, too late, a failure to fulfill his obligation to trust the American people with the truth.

But a step in the right direction, is a still a step in the right direction. One other needed step to ensure that Congress fulfills its obligation to provide checks, balance and oversight of the executive branch, is to elect a divided congress in November.

UPDATE - September 19, 2006:
Reading Eugene Robinson's column "Torture is Torture" at the Washington Post one wonders how it is that we got to this state, where our leaders, in our name, debate whether and how we will torture prisoners:

"It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American. There is one ray of encouragement: the crystal-clear evidence that the men and women of our armed forces want no part of torturing anybody. The members of the Republican resistance -- Sens. John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- have impeccable Pentagon connections and are not operating in a vacuum.... Colin Powell's strongly worded rejection of torture should have embarrassed and chastened the White House, but this is a president who refuses to listen to critics of his "war on terrorism" -- even critics who helped design and lead it."

UPDATE - October 19, 2006: June 11, 2007
I noticed that the London Guardian Unlimited NewsBlog linked to this post, prompting a hasty housecleaning to correct a few typos and spelling errors. Welcome to any visitors from across the pond.

Two updates of potential interest since this was posted. On September 25, I expanded on the theme of this post, wrote and posted an Open Letter to Colin Powell. It was prompted by a rereading of his memoir "My American Journey" and the striking parallels between his words about Vietnam and our current quagmire in Iraq. I did not really expect a a reply, and I have not been disappointed. I have also subsequently read this 09-October-06 LA Times review by Tim Rutten of a new Colin Powell biography Soldier:The Life of Colin Powell. Mr. Rutten sadly validates my fears regarding how history will treat Colin Powell and his role in the Iraq adventure:

"At the end of the day, these two exemplary soldiers, Powell and Lee, shared the same tragic flaw — an inability to recognize the moment in which personal loyalty becomes civic folly."

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Just Vote Divided.

I'll have a Rum & Mac on the rocks

It is happy hour here at the Repeating History Bar, and the drink of the day is the Rum & Mac on the rocks.

UPDATE: Friday, November 3, 2006
I originally posted this on Labor day, predicting that Rumsfeld's resignation/firing was imminent. My point was that Rumsfeld has presided over such breathtaking incompetence in the prosecution of the Iraq occupation, that the Republicans could not maintain Congress if he retained his post. Two months later, Rumsfeld is still in his post, and the Republicans are a few days away from losing at least one house of Congress. On a compaign swing this week, President Bush stated that "he wanted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the top architect of the war... to remain with him until the end of his presidency". This reinforced another key point of this post. George W. Bush practices a private sector hands-off management style that demands accountability from and replacement of direct reports that fail to meet agreed objectives. Problem being, despite frequent empty rhetoric about accountability, this President has not held Donald Rumsfeld accountable for his failure in Iraq. This simply passes all understanding, and is another reason why it is important that a divided government/Democratic congress be elected on Tuesday. We need a Congress that will accept the responsibility that the executive branch has abandoned, and impose the oversight and accountability on Rumsfeld and the execution of this war that the executive branch has failed to implement. This post is more relevant now than when I wrote it:

Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense '61-'68) from "The Fog of War":

"I had this enormous respect and affection, loyalty, to both Kennedy and Johnson. But at the end, Johnson and I found ourselves poles apart... And I said to a very close and dear friend of mine, Kay Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post:"Even to this day, Kay, I don't know whether I quit or was fired?" She said, "You're out of your mind. Of course you were fired." ... Something had to give. There was a rumor that I was facing a mental breakdown. I was under such pressure and stress. I don't think that was the case at all. But it was a really traumatic departure. That's the way it ended. Except for one thing: he awarded me the Medal of Freedom in a very beautiful ceremony at the White House."

Let's see, a President caught between the "rock" of growing unpopularity of a costly war, and the "hard place" of affection and loyalty for the Secretary of Defense / architect of that war, and completely convinced of the correctness of his own administration's actions in that war.

I have seen this movie before, and I remember how it ends.

Rumsfeld is history. It is only a question of time and timing. Rumsfeld resigns as soon as a replacement is identified and agreed. Is it politic to wait until after the mid-terms, or to act now? My guess - He resigns within the week and (since we are already out on a limb, might as well climb out on the small branches) John McCain is the new Secretary of Defense.

The Democrats are ramping up for a Rumsfeld Rip-Fest. A non-binding resolution declaring "No-Confidence" in the Secretary of Defense will be offered by Democrats in Congress on Wednesday. The outrage is being rehearsed and the purple prose is being prepared as we speak. Democrats are salivating to take their pound of Rummy flesh while demonstrating their oratorial skills on you-tube, c-span, and the nightly news (in that order).

Rove and the Republicans know exactly what is coming, and no one has ever accused them of being politically naive. What better way to take the air out of the expanding Democratic political balloon than by announcing Rumsfeld's resignation before the speechifying starts? What better way to respond to all those speeches, than to keep them on the shelf? Paradoxically, the shit-storm around Rumsfeld's recent comments has handed the administration a perfect face saving opportunity to strike a potentially game changing blow in the 2006 political season. Rumsfeld can play the misunderstood, misquoted, patriotic, loyal soldier, taking a bullet for the team, while the media takes the blame. Here is his speech: - "Even though my words have been misreported and misrepresented, I cannot allow my words and my presence to become a distraction, and a detriment to the important work facing the President and the American people in this war against terror." The President expresses his regrets, and appoints a universally respected unassailable warrior in his place. In a couple of weeks, Rumsfeld gets his medal, and we move on.

Will it happen? Just ask yourself - Can the Republicans maintain the majority with two months of continuous Rumsfeld/Iraq War bashing between now and the election? On the other hand, can they possibly pull it out with a "fresh start" and a new voice calling for a new direction on war?

Done Deal.Rum & Mac on the cover of Time magazine.
Coincidently each cover appeared two years before their respective resignations.

Politics are the wrong reason for this move , but it is still the right move for our country. We really need a change. We need new thinking from our leadership on this war and we need it right now. Take this example from Rumsfeld's speech: "The extremists themselves call Iraq the “epicenter” in the War on Terror." This just begs the question (and I mean fully prostrate plaintive begging) of exactly Why did the extremists not think that way, before we occupied the country? But lest I be accused of "moral and intellectual confusion", let us just call this one more instance in the continuing series of what Rumsfeld and other adminstration officials now seem perfectly comfortable saying - to whit: "mistakes were made" in the prosecution of the war.

So let's get to the right reason for getting rid of Rumsfeld. It is understandable in the "fog of war" that "mistakes are made". The American people can accept that. But when the stakes are thousands of American soldiers lives, tens of thousands of civilian Iraqi lives, hundred of billions of dollars, and staring into the abyss of a failed policy, it is not acceptable for there to be no consquences when "mistakes are made". We are not talking about small mistakes or a minor miss here:

"that civilian officials in the Pentagon were so convinced that these "follow-on forces" wouldn't be needed in Iraq that they thought they could withdraw 50,000 troops from Iraq in June 2003; 50,000 more in July; and a final 50,000 in August. By September 2003, Rumsfeld and his aides thought, there would be very few American troops left in Iraq."

This is a breathtakingly large mistake. This is not, as Rumsfeld said in his Tuesday speech simply a matter of "As the nature of the threat and the conflict in Iraq has changed over these past several years, so have the tactics and the deployments. " This was a big-time, world class screw-up, and someone has to be accountable and take the fall.

Bush and Cheney are elected, so barring impeachment, that only leaves the Donald. The change can be justified purely on the failure of tactics/strategy which I do not need to further belabor here. Anton Kaiser, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and Vietnam vet, does a much better job than I can explaining "Why Rumsfeld Should Be Fired For not learning the lessons of previous conflicts."

There is another reason, and it has to do with the President's management style. His leadership has been likened to a private sector CEO . This quote summarizes his style as well as any "Bush's 10 common-sense leadership lessons: Hire smart, build trust, talk straight, and leave aides alone..."

This is a classic private sector management style. If you get the right team in place, it is highly effective. I can speak from personal experience, having managed large and small teams most of my professional career. My greatest success in business was using this style when I had a great team working for me. They made me look like a genius and left plenty of time for golf and pontificating on how to win in business.

The problem centers on the word "accountability", a word that GWB uses frequently, but does not seeem to apply to his direct reports. With that management style, "say what you'll do, do what you say" is the mantra. It is incumbent to have clear agreed objectives, and if the objectives are not met, immediate replacement is expected. If you, as the leader, are not going to get deep in the details yourself, then your only tool for managing performance is changing personnel when agreed objectives are not met. If you do not, then you have abrogated your leadership responsibility.

I am not going to go into details of "coulda, shoulda, woulda" in Iraq. That particular dead horse is being continually beaten every day throughout the blogosphere. George Will explains why "Regarding Iraq, there will not soon be an Eisenhower moment. " (i.e. just stop the war - as in Korea). My point is simple. Regardless of the specifics of how we got here, regardless of how long we need to stay, it is absolutely clear, that we are not now where we expected to be in Iraq, and the same guys that did the planning and then executed the plan that got us here are still in charge.

Accountability demands that Bush replace Rumsfeld. Sometimes change for the sake of change is the right answer. Bush put Rumsfeld in the pilot seat of a plane that took off from New York and was flying to Paris, but instead, landed in San Francisco. The fact that he is still flying the plane, is a reflection of a boss that does not understand the meaning of the word accountibility.

And if the President does not understand this principle of accountability, it must be applied another way:

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Just Vote Divided.