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I just caught 3 minutes of their press confernce on CNN. A total white wash. According to Schlesinger the 'most disturbing' incident of abuse that came to his mind was how dog handlers had scared young Iraqis until they had 'bowel movements.' He also mentioned naked solitary confinement, but was quick to point out that isn't always abuse (only under "extreme temperatures"). Strange how he omitted any mention of the allegations that people died under beating, had wires attached to their genitals, or were sodomized... I guess that they were more interested in exploring how their planners could have possibly guessed that their lack of planning wouldn't lead to an automatic "stable successor regime."

I heard only parts of NPR's Talk of the Nation today, but the consensus among guests who seemed to know whereof they spoke was that the story isn't even half over. There will be more investigations, more revelations, but all with the problem that as we get further away from events and further into investigation, the focus will get increasingly blurred.

The commission didn't exactly shield Rumsfeld. The headlines this morning all ran some variant of the same theme: "Rummy is Responsible, Says Panel". Some whitewash!

The commission's mandate wasn't to call for resignations. With that in mind, it probably hurt Rumsfeld more than it helped.

In regards to Rumsfeld's war plan, didn't we convince many Iraqi divisions to stand down by having the CIA pay millions of dollars in persuasion to the top officers? I bet, in addition to the cash, we promised them that we would use the Army to secure Iraq after we got Saddam. If that is the case and we then turned around and dismissed the entire Iraqi army (because they stood in Chalabis way) wouldn't that be a spectactular double-cross that would feed the anger and manpower of an armed insurgency?

Kudos to Kevin. Rumsfeld is a deeply-conflicted old-order cold-warrior and military- and veteran-hater, who just happens to be Secretary of War.

Above his resume, there are far more sinister and un-conflicted cabalists like Chalabi, who would sell their own mother, and the Kurds and IDF in the bargain, for a handful of shekels.

These are the folks that prowl the Oval Office. Rumsfeld lies in a closet over in the Pentagon, hoping for a wink and a nod from the Bushster.

This is a wonderful picture to replace the picture of torture in the minds of people in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. WHO IS GOING TO TAKE THE BLAME FOR THIS UNSPEAKABLE HORROR DONE IN OUR NAME? When is someone in charge going to have the courage to resign? Or are they all moral cowards? Yes, I'm yelling, for which I don't apologize. "Responsible, but not culpable" in the language of the last report. WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? It means that no American who pretended it was all right to avoid the Geneva Convention and other treaties--circumventing the supreme law of the land--will never have to answer for it. Some responsibility administration!

Charles

Must read:
http://www.geocities.com/rummyfan/newsweek.html

Charles: Take a deep breath. Step away from the CAPS LOCK button. Please understand that most of us on this board are deeply critical of the Administration. (Me too.)

But the Abu Ghraib issue, and the larger question of interrogation and prisoner treatment, is complicated. Read Phil Carter's take at Slate.com. Then reconsider the commission's conclusion. "Responsible but not culpable" is an awkward phrase, but I think the basic point is fair: DOD made serious mistakes in war planning that indirectly led to the conditions at Abu Ghraib. But Donald Rumsfeld neither condoned nor ordered the torture. That's why he's not culpable.

Before you reply, know this: I think Rumsfeld should resign. It would send a signal to Muslim world that we actually care about this stuff. A small, belated signal, but a signal nonetheless.

Sy Hersch's book that will be out in a few weeks will apparently do for Abu Ghar....ub what he did for My Lai.

Non-accountability seems to be the latest thing. The 9/11 report made a point of not blaming or criticizing anyone, even though everything it said about Ashcroft's or Bush's performance was very bad. The buildup to an indictment was there, but the operative sentence had been removed.

And of course, that's how the media deal with speeches -- never check them against known facts.'

I blame Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary.

>>>Donald Rumsfeld wanted to demonstrate that the U.S. army could conquer Iraq with only a tiny fraction of its resources: two divisions in two weeks. The idea was to terrify everybody else in the Middle East and elsewhere: if this is what the 3rd Infantry and 101st Airmobile can do by themselves, what would happen were the U.S. to mobilize?<<<

A niggling point...but did we not also have some 60,000 U.S. Marines and 28,000 British Army and Royal Navy Marines on the ground as well…with air support provided by 25,000 U.S. Air Force personnel and 70,000+ USN and Royal Navy sailors and airmen?

Accountable but not culpable seems to be the circum-millenial republican response to anything and everything. Ken Lay ran Enron while they robbed their employees, pensioners and customers? Well, maybe as CEO he was responsible, but you can't hold him culpable. Ditto Cheney and Halliburton. Now we hear the same story about Rummy.
This is the new aristocracy. They *are* above the law.

" . . . astonishing tactical victories . . . stupid strategic plan."

This military jargon confuses me. Before any of our troops had crossed into Iraq, Iraq's military command and control had been destroyed which means that our military was fighting partisans. We're still fighting partisans, so when did the fight become strategic?

Someone help, please.

There was nothing astonishing about the tactical victories. If you lookd closely at the Gulf War, you would have expected what we got.

“It would send a signal to Muslim world that we actually care about this stuff ...”

It would also signal (in their frame of reference) timidity. To show timidity is to invite more terror. It might come as a shock, but the US tortured Japanese POWs in WWII. Do you think that made any difference in the way Japan conducted the war? Over the last 60 years, except for Germany, I can’t think of single conflict where our opposition adhered to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of American POWs. This includes Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Iran, and Iraq. The Arabs and Muslims don’t even respect the special status of a foreign embassy. In what amounts to an act of war, Iran invaded the American embassy in 1979, and we did nothing. Compare and contrast to the way the Soviet Union reacted when Arabs killed their diplomats. They had the KGB hunt down the perpetrators and deliver the dead bodies to their families in a sexually mutilated condition. I never heard anyone complain about that. For the Geneva Convention to work both sides must play by the rules, and the Convention stipulates this. Let’s face it; the Geneva Convention is irrelevant to our adversaries. It doesn’t buy any protection for our soldiers as the history of last 60 years has amply demonstrated.

A. Zarkov: You make one good point about the paradox in the war on terrorism. Al Qaeda propaganda (a) blames the United States for being an aggressive imperialist power hell bent on killing Mulisms, but (b) calls the United States a chicken when it doesn't use force. With the hard core guys, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

But here's what you don't understand: our audience is not Al Qaeda. We've never had a chance with them. It's the larger Muslim world - the vast sea of potential recruits - that is more important. If we are to gain any long term traction in the war on terror, we must work to see that they do not join up.

Check out the Pew Worldwide survey data on this point. Most Muslims actually like American values, but their feelings about America have dropped dramatically since the Iraq war began. This suggests that our use of force - especially in ways that violate Geneva - is not cowing them into submission, as you seem to think. Quite the opposite.

One last thing: beware of false analagies. I find it amazing that you are using the KGB as a source of inspiration. I can think of no worse role model in a battle for hearts and minds.

I don't pretend to know enough about "them" to know what signal our actions send to them, though that is a point obviously worth keeping in mind. At some point, though, we need to think about the message it sends to us. We need to be who we tell ourselves we are. Every time those in power get a free ride while the kid with the dime bag goes to prison, we are telling ourselves that power, not responsibility, is what matters. There is way too much willingness to change our culture to accommodate the needs of war, the new terror-ridden times. No thank you.

As far as the results of the commission go, wasn't it pretty obvious what the likely range of outcomes would be when there were no DA's appointed to the panel? Hire all the investigators you want, but if the guys who direct their activities and approve the final draft are mostly former upper level guys from the institution being investigated, the point is to preserve the institution. Former Defense Secretaries do not indict Defense Secretaries. Wasn't that obvious from the start?

To add on to JR's response to Zarkov, I don't understand the logic that says that we must stoop to the level of our adversary in order to win. I believe that living out stated US values is integral to minimizing the potential members of the al Qaeda organization and ideology, as JR suggests. Needless to say, this is a long process, but it has to start some time.

"Donald Rumsfeld wanted to demonstrate that the U.S. army could conquer Iraq with only a tiny fraction of its resources: two divisions in two weeks. "

Oh please. In 2003 that might have been a defensible guess about the man's intentions. But now the actual declassified "after action /lessons learned" reports are out there. These, necessarily, reveal more about what was intended, and how plans were laid to accomplish those intentions, than was available before and during the war. AND, they reveal what sorts of things went wrong.

One important thing that went "wrong" was the war ended much more quickly than planned for; and before all the planned-for "boots on the ground" had actually arrived.

Let's excerpt a bit from

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/onpoint/ch-6.htm

begin quotes

The CFLCC plan for reducing Baghdad was necessarily vague. As late as D-day, Lieutenant General McKiernan could not predict what the battlefield would look like when V Corps and I MEF reached the city. Planners, from CENTCOM down to the maneuver divisions, struggled to paint a picture of the city after an unknown period of fighting during the approach from Kuwait.

While the corps and MEF consolidated around the city, both planned to execute a steady stream of limited-objective raids, air strikes, psychological and information operations, and ground attacks on key targets in the city. These targets were chosen with great care to degrade the regime's actual--and perceived--control over the capital city and the country of Iraq ...

The fight moving north had been radically different from ... expected. The march north was to have been relatively easy, with some fighting against the bound-to-capitulate regular army units, but mostly cheering Shiite Iraqis in welcome parties. But close combat with Iraqi and foreign fighters closing in from all sides in fanatical--and suicidal-- waves had given the soldiers pause.

Prior to D-day, intelligence officers estimated that no more that 9-12 company equivalents of the Republican Guard would successfully retreat into the city. They expected these units to be disorganized. According to the estimates, these remnants would report to the SRG, who were expected to stand and fight in the city. There was some reason to believe the Iraqis had developed a sophisticated and potentially effective city-defense strategy that would leverage all of the advantages of a prepared defense in an urban environment. Captured documents revealed a detailed plan to divide Baghdad into sectors and defend it in a manner reminiscent of the First Battle of Grozny. The international airport and the palace complex area in the heart of the city would be the most heavily defended sites in Baghdad. All intelligence reporting supported these assessments, indicating that the defense would crystallize around these two critical facilities.

{But] Imagery and other reports inexplicably showed almost no preparations within the city. There were numerous small fighting positions but none of the deliberate defenses that common sense and Iraqi doctrine indicated. Intelligence and field reports painted a picture of mixed units thrown haphazardly into the fray with little command and control. Intelligence officers could no longer speak with assurance about which unit was where, let alone in what strength. Some units fought, some died in place under the rain of coalition fires, and some abandoned their equipment and just walked away.

Given the ambiguity surrounding Baghdad, the division's first order of business was to probe, or raid, the city, just to see what would happen. Literally sticking his hand into what everyone expected to be a "hornets' nest," Blount ordered Colonel Perkins' 2nd BCT to conduct a thunder run into the city.

Taking less than a day to assess the reaction, Wallace and Blount struck again. This time, rather than a simple one-battalion raid, the division ordered a full brigade into the heart of Baghdad. On 7 April, Colonel Perkins' 2nd Brigade Spartans launched a second thunder run, ending up in downtown Baghdad--the absolute heart of Saddam's regime--to demonstrate to the Iraqis and the world the Americans' freedom to move about the city. On that day Perkins made the single decision that arguably shortened the siege by weeks, if not months--he chose to stay downtown.

The entire movement went a lot faster than anyone had anticipated....

end quotes

Though I might urge you go read the whole thing and pinpoint just when and where in the actual timeline the actual "cheering crowds" finally did appear.

ANYHOW, Rummy was certainly and documentedly planning more than two divisions to work over a period longer than two weeks and it is sloppy to suggest otherwise. After action analysis offers plenty of scope to criticize without inventing bogusities.

Radicitus, comes! - Really rad, dude!

“But here's what you don't understand: our audience is not Al Qaeda. We've never had a chance with them. It's the larger Muslim world - the vast sea of potential recruits - that is more important.”

I do understand that argument, and while I don’t reject it completely, I stand skeptical. The kind of fanatical Muslims that get recruited are not people susceptible to reason (within our frame of reference). They don’t need provocation from us, as they are products of a lifetime of conditioning, starting in childhood. They will believe any rumor or assertion about us, whether true or not. Look at the scurrilous propaganda about Jews that emits from even the official press in Arab world—e.g. Egypt.

“One last thing: beware of false analagies (sic). I find it amazing that you are using the KGB as a source of inspiration. I can think of no worse role model in a battle for hearts and minds.”

The KGB understands what Muslims fear more than death—sexual mutilation. The Arabs stopped killing Soviet diplomats when they received this horrific response. Clearly there are fanatics that are incapable of being deterred, witness Russia’s actions against the Chechnya Muslims have not subdued that country’s rebellion and terror against Russia. But that only shows you can’t deter everyone.

Finally, I don’t consider it a “battle for hearts and minds” (what a stock phrase!). The West does not seek to convert the Muslim world, but the Muslim world does seek to convert the West. And radical Islam will employ any means to do this (with the tacit consent of the non-radical Islamic population). Remember the behavior of Muslims against Jews. In all Arab countries they were second-class citizens. In the 1940s virtually all Jews living in Arab countries had to leave (about 600,000) because of the intolerable conditions they lived under. When Jordan ruled East Jerusalem, they desecrated Jewish cemeteries, and the most scared place in the world for Jews—the remains of the Temple. Moreover Jews were not allowed to enter East Jerusalem. Compare and contrast to the behavior of Israel after it took control of East Jerusalem in 1967. The sanctity of everyone’s religious shrines was and is respected. Why doesn’t the Muslim world try to win the “hearts and minds” of the West? You know such an idea would be anathema to them. And what did Israel’s tolerance and respect for Islamic sacred sites get them? Nothing but more terror.

A. Zarkov,

The policy recommendation that follows from your comments is that the US should routinely mutilate the genitals of all Arab and Moslem prisoners. Is this really what you want to suggest?

Bigod:

Where do you get “routinely” and “all?” Certainly that’s not what I wrote.

But I do take objection to the concept that we must always play by rules more stringent than our enemies, even if that means taking a sucker punch. I doubt if you yourself would take a sucker punch.

You expressed admiration and approval of mutilating genitals. I didn't notice any reservations that would restrict it to less thal "all". Otherwise, I just see gibber and innuendo, and certainly no concession that rules and respect for norms are useful.

Fax mentis incedium gloriae - The passion of glory is the torch of the mind

Bigod: “... certainly no concession that rules and respect for norms are useful.”

Rules and respect for norms are useful, and that’s exactly my point. Our Arab and Muslim opponents show no respect for norms. As I said previously, even the sanctity of an embassy is not respected in the Middle East. Moreover for the last 60 years none of our war opponents (expect for Germany) has adhered to the Geneva Convention provisions with respect to the treatment of POWs. You want the US to always “play by the rules” even though our opponents don’t. My question to you: If you had to go into the boxing ring, would you follow Marquis of Queensbury Rules even though your opponent wouldn’t? I don’t think so.

Your position sseems to be that since "our Arab and Moslem opponents" don't play by the rules, we should start mutilating genitals. I don't think this would be a wise course of action. To be old-fashioned and consider international law, my impression is that the treaty on torture is unilaterally binding.

My position is that we should not automatically grant POW status (as we did in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq) to enemy combatants when it is clear that they have no intention of playing by the rules. The Geneva Convention does not offer protection to countries and groups that refuse to abide by the provisions of the Convention. As for torture, our own laws prohibit that. I don’t think our laws prohibit the mutilation of a corpse, but I don’t know that for sure. All references to mutilation refer to corpses not the living.

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