Poor Rummy might be on the way out

[sppunk]

Bush has been quoted as saying he is very upset at how Rumsfeld has handled the prisoner abuse situation. Powell and Rumsfeld are again at odds, and now some high-level administrators are apparently asking for Rumsfeld to be demoted.

Everyone with me now, who's running the country again? Oh, that's right: Karl Rove.

[sawdust restaurants]

Bush said himself that he doesn't want Rumsfeld to leave, something McClellan backed up, but I can't imagine that they'll actually leave him on. There's ego and loyalty, and then there's ego and loyalty.

[sppunk]

Check out the article in this week's NEWSWEEK about the abuse scandal. Bush appears to have had it with Rumsfeld's treatment of things.

I don't blame him one bit.

[if you are]

rumsfeld on the way out? god, let's fucking hope so.... is it just me, or does he seem completely cruel and heartless? i'm sure he's impotent.

[I_was_aborted]

Bush was asked about 30 minutes ago if he planned on firing rumsfeld and he replied with "He is a valuable member of my cabinet and will remain in my cabinet" or something to that effect.

On a side note I would love to see Rumsfeld and Ashcroft both turn up dead due to heroin overdoses in the beds of ugly hookers.

[sppunk]

Originally posted by I_was_aborted
Bush was asked about 30 minutes ago if he planned on firing rumsfeld and he replied with "He is a valuable member of my cabinet and will remain in my cabinet" or something to that effect.

Ah, the compassionate nod of approval.

If I were Rumsfeld, I'd watch my back and get my resume ready.

[sleeper]

youd think it be rumsfeld firing bush

[BlueStar]

An e-mail I just got...

Dear MoveOn member,

It's time for President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld from his post as
America's Secretary of Defense. The signs are now everywhere.

As Thomas Friedman put it, in a column titled "Restoring Our Honor":

"This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all. That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- today, not tomorrow or next month, today." [1]

Please call President Bush now, and urge him to fire Rumsfeld.
White House comment line
202-456-1111 or
202-456-1112

Bush has already taken the unusual step of publicly disclosing a
reprimand of Rumsfeld. But he's got to go further, and dismiss him.

Please also call your Senators and Representative:
Senator John William Warner
Washington, DC: 202-224-2023

Senator George F. Allen
Washington, DC: 202-224-4024

Congressman James P. Moran
Washington, DC: 202-225-4376

Let them know it's time for Rumsfeld to go.

Here are some highlights from the latest reports, illustrating why:

Presidential advisor Karl Rove "believes that it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world." [2]

The Washington Post reports that "U.S. officials said Rumsfeld and the Pentagon resisted appeals in recent months from the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority to deal with problems relating to detainees." [3] The Post also links the culture that fostered torture to Rumsfeld, in a searing editorial excerpted below.

Amazingly, Rumsfeld still doesn't seem to see that the despicable acts at Abu Ghraib prison amounted to torture. According to Salon.com:

"My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word." [4]

Rumsfeld's simply got to go.

Please make your calls today. Please let us know you've called, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callrumsfeld.h...mhTkRE8AqQK9cg

Thank you.

Sincerely,

- Carrie, Joan, Noah, Peter, and Wes
The MoveOn.org team
Thursday, May 6th, 2004

P.S.: Here are key excerpts from the Post editorial:

Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility

THE HORRIFIC abuses by American interrogators and guards at the Abu Ghraib prison and at other facilities maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced, in part, to policy decisions and public statements of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured and murdered -- and in which, until recently, no one has been held accountable.

The lawlessness began in January 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan "do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions. That was not the case: At a minimum, all those arrested in the war zone were entitled under the conventions to a formal hearing to determine whether they were prisoners of war or unlawful combatants. No such hearings were
held, but then Mr. Rumsfeld made clear that U.S. observance of the convention was now optional. Prisoners, he said, would be treated "for the most part" in "a manner that is reasonably consistent" with the conventions -- which, the secretary breezily suggested, was outdated.

. . .

The Taguba report and others by human rights groups reveal that the detention system Mr. Rumsfeld oversees has become so grossly distorted that military police have abused or tortured prisoners under the direction of civilian contractors and intelligence officers outside the military chain of command -- not in "exceptional" cases, as Mr. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, but systematically. Army guards have held "ghost" prisoners
detained by the CIA and even hidden these prisoners from the International Red Cross. Meanwhile, Mr. Rumsfeld's contempt for the Geneva Conventions has trickled down: The Taguba report says that guards at Abu Ghraib had not been instructed on them and that no copies were posted in the facility.

The abuses that have done so much harm to the U.S. mission in Iraq might have been prevented had Mr. Rumsfeld been responsive to earlier reports of violations. Instead, he publicly dismissed or minimized such accounts. He and his staff ignored detailed reports by respected human rights groups about criminal activity at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, and they refused to provide access to facilities or respond to most questions. In December 2002, two Afghan detainees died in events that were
ruled homicides by medical officials; only when the New York Times obtained the story did the Pentagon confirm that an investigation was underway, and no results have yet been announced. Not until other media obtained the photos from Abu Ghraib did Mr. Rumsfeld fully acknowledge what had happened, and not until Tuesday did his department disclose that 25
prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Accountability for those deaths has been virtually nonexistent: One soldier was punished with a dishonorable discharge.

On Monday Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman said that the secretary had not read Mr. Taguba's report, which was completed in early March. Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld told a television interviewer that he still hadn't finished reading it, and he repeated his view that the Geneva Conventions "did not precisely apply" but were only "basic rules" for handling prisoners. His message remains the same: that the United States need not be bound by
international law and that the crimes Mr. Taguba reported are not, for him, a priority. That attitude has undermined the American military's observance of basic human rights and damaged this country's ability to prevail in the war on terrorism.

[The full editorial is at:]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004May5.html

Footnotes:

[1] Friedman's complete column is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/op...06FRIE.html?th

[2] Rumsfeld Chastised by President for His Handling of Iraq Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/po...06CABI.html?hp

[3] Bush Privately Chides Rumsfeld
Officials Say Pentagon Resisted Repeated Calls for Prison Changes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004May5.html

[4] "Abuse"? How about torture
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blument.../index_np.html

[I_was_aborted]

Bush would not even apologize to the Iraqis for the abuse scandal. He made his spokesman say that he was sorry and when he was asked why Bush didn't say it he replied with, "I'm saying it for him now".

I do not think Bush will fire Rumsfeld as it would be similar to admitting a mistake, something which he will never do.

Originally posted by sppunk
Everyone with me now, who's running the country again? Oh, that's right: Karl Rove.

Karl just runs the propaganda department. He really doesn't control, or care, about anything going on in domestic or foreign policy.

"Hey George, you remember how to fly jets right? I want you to land on an aircraft carrier. It'll be awesome in November 04!"

As far as Rumsfeld goes, I think the Bush Administration is looking for a scapegoat.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by Mr. Rhinoceros


Karl just runs the propaganda department. He really doesn't control, or care, about anything going on in domestic or foreign policy.

"Hey George, you remember how to fly jets right? I want you to land on an aircraft carrier. It'll be awesome in November 04!"

As far as Rumsfeld goes, I think the Bush Administration is looking for a scapegoat.

This much is true.

As for the last scapegoat part, it would have been far easier for the Bush administration to pick someone completely removed from the cabinet if they wanted a scapegoat. Someone like that lady General whose name escapes me. I don't think this is a scapegoat thing.

[tweedyburd]

If the administration is looking for a scapegoat, then they did a pretty good job of getting MoveOn, the Post, the Times, etc to sign up.

After reading Woodward's new book, it's pretty incredible how short-sighted the post-invasion plans were in the Pentegon. It is now obvious there was a fundamental break down in the understanding of the country's cultural history and strife associated with the Sunnis and more radical Shia. Those things were never even mentioned in Rummy and Feith's post-war plans.

But this is really only the lastest in a string of good reasons for Rummy to hit the road. His ideas on warfare and occupation were, in hindsight, doomed from the beginning and the military is not ready, technologically speaking, to do the things he believes it should be able to do with the amount of troops he wants to use.

[Mayfuck]

Originally posted by BlueStar
An e-mail I just got...

Dear MoveOn member,

[tootsie]

im watching the senate panel questioning right now.

rumsfeld is not coming off well.

Originally posted by tweedyburd
If the administration is looking for a scapegoat, then they did a pretty good job of getting MoveOn, the Post, the Times, etc to sign up.

Well of course, the press manufactures consent for the government. They were all for the war in Iraq to start with. Charlie Gibson appears to be working for the Bush Administration when he interviewed Kerry. The press is hardly independent sometimes.

In regards to the rest of your post, I personally think the president should take more responsibility for this but I think he's too busy playing golf or fucking around in general to bother with any details at all. This is the kind of shit that happens when there is a President that cares little about what he's doing.

[tweedyburd]

Originally posted by Mr. Rhinoceros


Well of course, the press manufactures consent for the government.

Yeah, MoveOn and the NYT really cheered the war on. Good one, Chomsky.

Originally posted by Mr. Rhinoceros

In regards to the rest of your post, I personally think the president should take more responsibility for this but I think he's too busy playing golf or fucking around in general to bother with any details at all. This is the kind of shit that happens when there is a President that cares little about what he's doing.

Eh, I just think he's too tied up in this unrealistic sense of loyalty to everyone around him. If Bush was smart he'd get rid of Cheney and Rumsfeld, appoint McCain to Defense and promote Rice to the V.P.

[BlueStar]

Originally posted by Nimrod

As for the last scapegoat part, it would have been far easier for the Bush administration to pick someone completely removed from the cabinet if they wanted a scapegoat.

Yep, I agree. And I can't really see Bush firing Rumsfeld.

And I found this interesting (and will post it here for two reasons 1: the Kerry campaign aspect and 2: the the timeline of events)...

Dear Friend,

Over the past week we have all been shocked by the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But we have also been appalled at the slow and inept response by President Bush, which has further undermined America's credibility in the world and created new dangers for Americans in Iraq. George Bush must fire Donald Rumsfeld. But that is only a first step towards taking responsibility for his administration's failures in Iraq.

John Kerry has called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and today we're asking you to support him by adding your name to the call for Rumsfeld to resign here:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rumsfeld.php

Help us show that America supports John Kerry in calling for Rumsfeld to resign. If 50,000 people sign this petition, that is a strong statement that will be recognized in the media -- and by the Bush-Cheney campaign. Help us get to 50,000 signers by today by forwarding this email to your friends and family.

The events of the last week are a stark reminder of the stakes in this Presidential election. John Kerry's remarks yesterday painted a striking contrast to President Bush's evasion of responsibility,

"As president, I will not be the last to know what is going on in my command," Kerry said. "I will demand accountability for those who serve and I will take responsibility for their actions. And I will do everything that I can in my power to repair the damage that this has caused to America, to our standing in the world, and to the ideals for which we stand...Today, I have a message for the men and women of our armed forces. As commander in chief, I will honor your commitment and I will take responsibility for the bad as well as the good."

Show George Bush and show the media that you support John Kerry's stand: Donald Rumsfeld MUST resign immediately. To sign please click here:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/rumsfeld.php

Obviously this is one of the most important petitions we will send out in the course of this campaign. Please forward this petition to EVERYONE in your address book and get the word out.

Thank you,

Mary Beth Cahill
Campaign Manager, John Kerry for President

TIMELINE: What was known, and when.

Fall 2003 Bremer repeatedly raises issue of prison conditions with Rumsfeld and the President's inner circle according to LA Times: "Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as 'kicking and screaming' about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

November 5, 2003 Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder files report concluding that there were potential human rights, training, and manpower issues -- system wide -- that needed immediate attention. Discussed serious concerns about tension between missions of the military police assigned to guard prisoners and intelligence teams who interrogate them. (New Yorker Magazine, Hersh, 5/5/04

January 2004 Rumsfeld learns of photographs showing prisoner abuse according to the Washington Post: "...Rumsfeld has known of the photographs since January, when they came to the attention of U.S. commanders in Iraq, he had not seen them, and he was not aware that CBS was about to air them until just hours before they were broadcast last week." (Washington Post, Graham, 5/7/04)

Mid-January, 2004 Bush told about the photo of abuse according to the Washington Post: "Marine Gen. Peter Pace...said Wednesday on CBS's "Early Show" that beginning in mid-January, everyone "up the chain of command . . . was kept apprised orally of the ongoing investigation." Asked if Bush "was well aware of the situation," Pace replied: "Yes."" (Washington Post, Allen, 5/7/04)

Late February 2004 Major General Antonio M. Taguba issues 53-page report concluding that between October and December 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. Report was not meant for public release. (New York, Hersh, 5/5/04 and LA Times, McDonnell, 5/3/04)

March 2004 Six enlisted personnel charged with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. One is court marshaled. (AP, Burns, 5/3/04)

Mid-April, 2004 Military learns CBS has pictures of prisoner abuse in Iraq. General Abizaid and General Myers ask CBS to post-pone broadcast of the photos. (NY Times, Schmitt, 5/4/04)

Graphic photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners are shown on CBS 60 Minutes 2. (AP, Crary, 4/28/04)

Rumsfeld provides classified briefing to Congressional leaders on situation in Iraq, fails to mention that photos of Iraqi abuse victims will be aired that evening on television. (Senate Armed Services Committee Testimony, Levin, 5/7/04)

May 3, 2004 Spokesman McClellan says that Bush still hasn't seen or been briefed on the Taguba report. (WH Briefing, McClellan, 5/3/04).

Rumsfeld says he disagrees with critics who have said the Pentagon moved too slowly. Defense Department officials have moved correctly and efficiently, he said. "The system works," he said. "The system works." Admitted he had not read the whole Taguba report or seen the photos. (DoD Briefing, Rumsfeld, 5/4/04)

Military discloses Army has conducted 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths of Iraqis already determined to have been criminal homicides. (NY Times, Neilan, 5/5/04)

General George Casey, Army's Vice-Chief of Staff, refers to a "complete breakdown in discipline." (NY Times, Reuters wire, 5/5/04)

[The Omega Concern]

yah, lets get rid of Rummy. That'll show the world how much backbone we got. Im sure the Arabs will respect Bush if he fires him.

There are repercussions to getting rid of him...not the least of which is that our enemies believe we don't have the resolve to finish this off and getting rid of Rumsfield only confirms those notions.

The media is out of control on this issue...seditious losers, most of them.

[BlueStar]

Originally posted by The Omega Concern

The media is out of control on this issue

Absolutely.

There was a poll out recently that showed that the majority of Americans do not want Rumsfeld out.

Originally posted by tweedyburd
Eh, I just think he's too tied up in this unrealistic sense of loyalty to everyone around him. If Bush was smart he'd get rid of Cheney and Rumsfeld, appoint McCain to Defense and promote Rice to the V.P.

Yeah but he's not very bright and he does not have control over his administration.

[sppunk]

Originally posted by Mr. Rhinoceros
Well of course, the press manufactures consent for the government.

Way to judge "the media" on one newspaper and an organization that's not really the media, but a watchdog group.

I would say the media has been incredibly supportive of the war and has overall not given Bush much accountability for the six false claims he made when pitching the war plan in the first place.

[tweedyburd]

Sense you obviously lack the most basic of analytical skills, I guess I have to point out to you that it wasn't me who was characterizing those two as "the media" that cheered for the war. Do yourself a favor and read the entire thread before posting stupid shit.

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by tweedyburd
Sense you obviously lack the most basic of analytical skills

[sppunk]

Originally posted by tweedyburd
Sense you obviously lack the most basic of analytical skills, I guess I have to point out to you that it wasn't me who was characterizing those two as "the media" that cheered for the war. Do yourself a favor and read the entire thread before posting stupid shit.

I quoted the wrong thing. My bad. I'll fix it.