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The Towering London
April 10, 2009 | 20 comments
Buy the Book
Forever In His Debt
With his new memoir, Donald Rumsfeld has cleared the air more than he knows.
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
by Donald Rumsfeld
(Sentinel, 726 pages, $36)
Born in 1932, Donald Rumsfeld was too young to have been a member of that “Greatest Generation” who fought in America’s “good” war (though he was the 10-year-old son of a father who, after Pearl Harbor, managed by sheer dint of will to nag an initially unwilling United States Navy into accepting him for duty). By the same token, he was too late for the “bad” wars, that is, Korea and Vietnam. What he did instead on being graduated from college was to join the Navy, learn to fly, become a naval flight instructor, and then head to Washington, where he learned some of the lesser arts of politics by working in the losing campaigns of two different congressmen. And at the age of 29 he ran for Congress himself from his home district in Illinois and won. But, though he himself does not quite put it this way — and despite the fact that with a group of fellow congressmen he would succeed, as it would turn out fatefully, in replacing the old minority leader with a congressman from Michigan named Gerald Ford — he was, especially as a Republican, bound to find the rules of the House too confining for his best energies. Thus it was that when Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency and called him to join the administration (as, of all things for someone regarding himself as a mostly conservative Republican, the head of the Office of Economic Opportunity) he was ready to embark on his true career as a manager of men and events.
Thirty-two years later, having played a variety of important roles in the administrations of Nixon, Ford, and Reagan as well as having taken time out to serve as the chief executive officer of two corporations, he would not himself be on the ground in a war but rather given the responsibility, as George W. Bush’s secretary of defense, for planning and directing two of them, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. And it is that experience, of course — quite properly — which occupies both the most engrossing, and inevitably the most significant, part of his book.
His first assignment as defense secretary, however (it would be his second round of duty in the job, having served briefly in the Pentagon during the Ford administration), was a no less daunting one than to reform and modernize (as well as to gain control and reshape the budget of) the American military. Anyone who merely casts a glance at the mass that is the Pentagon, no matter how ignorant he might be of the details of all the bureaucratic agreements and disagreements that seethe inside, can at least begin to imagine the uproar, personal as well as impersonal — or as Rumsfeld himself might have put it, “known and unknown” — that was bound to ensue. He was, of course, a manager, by that time a famously successful one, and it was said that the building itself began to tremble as he set loose an avalanche of the little white notes of inquiry and instruction that had come to be known as “Rumsfeld’s snowflakes.”
And then came September 11, 2001, which left the country (albeit not as determinedly as it did for a while appear to be) in the mood to be avenged for the terror visited upon New York and Washington. Thus less than a month later, on Sunday, October 7, Bush went on the air to announce that the United States was now engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom — as it would turn out, his less than apposite name for the campaign to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the putative author of September 11, as well as to rid Afghanistan of the terrorists of al Qaeda and their Taliban allies. And despite the fact that as December rolled around bin Laden was still safely at large, how could large numbers of Americans not have felt enthusiastic about the taking of Kabul, the toppling and decamping of the Taliban, and the establishment of a transitional Afghan tribal council headed by a tribally neutral leader named Hamid Karzai? Rumsfeld, however, was not among them: gangs of terrorists, after all, were mobile; they would still have to be pursued for who knew how long and how far and the governments who saw fit to protect them punished.
Next came Iraq. George W. Bush’s father had, of course, taken us to war with Iraq in 1991, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. But having driven the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, the president, the secretary of state, and even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, namely, General Colin Powell, believed that they had now done enough, militarily speaking. We have reached our military goal, Powell was alleged to have remarked; our military success is simply turning into a massacre. It was agreed in Washington that Saddam Hussein was bound to fall from power, particularly if the U.S. helped to push him by urging “pro-democracy elements” to rise up and topple him. But after this so very wise and humane counsel, as we know, the massacre that Powell feared seemed to fit better on the other foot — that is, the victims of the uprising turned out not to be the forces of Saddam but precisely those who rose up against him. Shiites and Kurds were slaughtered in the tens of thousands, while Saddam Hussein remained serenely in power. And through the eight years of the Clinton presidency the issue continued to fester — if not for Clinton himself, whose attention was so famously taken up with other problems, then at least for others, including Rumsfeld, who was among the signatories of a letter to Clinton urging that he take some kind of strong action against Saddam’s regime.
ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE legitimacy of our having gone into Iraq in the first place as well as about the conduct of American policy post-Saddam have been rehearsed and re-rehearsed for what is by now a very long time and must be known to every even half-sentient American. It would be merely tiresome to rehearse them here, except to point out that Rumsfeld himself, as he of course must, goes into the development of his own views of the matter at considerable length and with what is, in this book, a rather unusual degree of rhetorical passion. (Those who to this day claim not to have been convinced about the justice of that war are merely dancing to the music of a culture grown tired of feeling the often very complex rhythms of responsibility. So they continue to dispute established facts and look instead for simpler, more self-assured entertainment.)
Not that Donald Rumsfeld has never been a source of high entertainment for such people. Though the book purports to be a memoir not merely of his most significant work but of his life as a whole, he has entirely left out of it — for those who know him, no doubt predictably — any account of his experience as a national media celebrity. He nowhere mentions, for instance, that his frequent televised press conferences, in which he was able to run circles of humor, for the most part high good humor, around the Pentagon reporters gathered to challenge and be instructed by him, became a kind of popular public entertainment. Nor, of course, does he tell his readers that in 2002 he was named the world’s sexiest cabinet member by no less an authority on the issue of celebrity than People magazine.
But the day-to-day course of Rumsfeld’s (presumably final) tour of duty in the U.S. government turned out in the end, no doubt predictably, to be a somewhat different story, and for many, apparently to this day, a controversial one. For Washington is Washington. And if, as the man once said, power corrupts, it is the kind on display in that city and nearby environs, that is to say, divided power, that truly corrupts, and that is in turn corrupted, in a steady fashion. The White House and its staff, Congress and the individual members thereof, the secretary of state and his minions, the intelligence agencies and theirs, and the seemingly myriad departments and offices devoted to regulating the details of day-to-day governance all have interests of their own, often of course political interests, but perhaps almost as often individual ones, to pursue. And to say that the Pentagon is no exception is to say only that the wearing of a military uniform (especially one with some number of stars on it), and hence now and then a critical degree of responsibility for the very survival and well-being of the nation, does less than those of innocent mind might imagine to lessen the push of interests. All of which is to say further that on his second tour of duty as secretary of defense, with two wars to manage and two highly unstable countries to help bring to some degree of political and social decency, Rumsfeld not only had his work as a manager cut out for him but that some of that kind of work had to take place far closer to home than Afghanistan or Iraq — as close as across the Potomac River and even, now and then, as close as down the hall. And it is, of course, his account of these labors that takes up the major part as well as the true importance of Known and Unknown.
NOW, THE EARLY POPULAR ENTHUSIASM for the televised images of American military triumph in Iraq — the images of blazing aerial bombardment, speeding tanks on their way to Baghdad, the tearing down and dismantling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, etc. — would give way first to the pangs of anxiety brought on by uncertainty and not all that long after to a fairly widespread mood of complaint. Thus on May 1, 2003, when the president made the mistake of speaking cheerfully as he stood before a banner on which were emblazoned the words “Mission Accomplished,” the press, with a fair portion of the public in tow, was to land on him like a ton of bricks.
What, it was asked, was to be the role of the military now that Iraq had been taken over? The country was a place of wreckage in need of vast repair, its political condition too arcane for comprehension, its transition to something even mildly resembling stability seemingly so far off. Soldiers as well as civilians were now being terrorized and killed by roadside bombs. Who was supposed to oversee this mess? Would the United States be stuck with paying the bill associated with that old saw, “If you break it, you buy it?” The ranks of those experts who had taken to the press in opposition to our plans to begin with were now being mightily swelled by a veritable battalion of hostile journalists. Indeed, it was beginning to feel as if Rumsfeld’s countrymen, old as well as young, had never before been witness to the phenomenon of postwar uncertainty. All of the arguments about how to proceed now, or how the U.S. should initially have proceeded, both with, and in, Iraq (including those offered with obvious malice or in equally obvious esprit d’escalier) are taken up by Rumsfeld and answered coolly and at some length.[1]
Thus if we ever come as a nation truly to understand what we have done as well as what we must continue to do about Iraq and Afghanistan — and who at this particular moment can say where else? — our debt to him will be immeasurable.
One thing it has not been given him to do for us, however — being neither within the purview of the book he has written nor perhaps in his own as a man of hard sense and successful action — is point out for his readers the critical role played in all this by the present condition of our culture. The United States has for a long time now been playing a significantly benign role in the world. At times doing so has cost us dearly in both men and treasure, but it did once (in what now often feels like a far-distant past) also serve as a source not only of social health and vitality but even a spirit of gratitude for the privilege. For a moment, the sparking of our anger and national pride at the events of September 11 seemed to be reviving such a spirit, but this turned out to be an illusion: in what was little more than another moment it died again, probably from a too-many-decades-long cultural addiction to easy substitutes for the real thing. Call this addiction greed, call it sloth — it has, indeed, been a mighty combination of the two. Thus it is, for instance, that while just about everyone in the country is nowadays prepared to shed hot tears for its military dead, there are still among us many too many who are equally prepared to sneer at the purposes being served by those who survive to fight another day.
In himself, as both a private and a public man, Rumsfeld has been a living refutation of what has turned out to be a far too long-lived and costly cultural period. As an author he does not, of course, address this issue directly, and may have had too active and busy a life to have spent much time thinking in such terms.[2] Nevertheless, in clarifying a record of national intent and policy that has for so many unhappy reasons been so often abused, and in doing so with patience, diligence, and even a measure of high spirits, he has helped to cleanse more of the air around us than he appears to know.
[1] In addition, he tells us, a portion of his archive of supporting documents is available on his website.
[2] Though if he is promoting this book with the press and media as publishers so often require authors to do, he is surely finding himself directly in the path of its cultural headwinds.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (36) | Leave a comment
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Tina B| 4.6.11 @ 6:44AM
Can't wait to read it. I had changed my opinion of Rummie over those 8 years, and never dug deep on why. In retrospect I still admire and thanks him, as well as Bush, for their response to 9-11. I was watching and cheering along with many others. Looking forward to having my eyes opened some more.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.6.11 @ 7:06AM
Than you Mr. Secretary for your service.
God's speed
Dee See| 4.6.11 @ 7:54AM
----Wondering if Rumsfeld will one day
do a quality double take on our awesome
4 decades of Globalist sellout and TREASON
viz a viz the genocidal ---uh, we mean 'EUGENICS
realist' ---er, that was 'Singapore Model'
RED Chinese.
Wondering--------------------------------
as the borders, currency and pensions
dissolve, CHEM-trials choke the sky and
fallout from the Fukishima disaster
goes into its second unchecked week
-------------------------------WONDERING
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.6.11 @ 7:54AM
"Thank you" of course.
Intelligent Design| 4.6.11 @ 8:04AM
Excellent book - reading it now.
JimH| 4.6.11 @ 8:31AM
One may sometimes disagree with him but at least he was one of the grownups in the room.
Anthony| 4.6.11 @ 9:10AM
Sec. Rumsfeld, like V.P. Cheney, is truly among the best and the brightest, unlike those in the Kennedy Administration, who were given the title by simply being Democrats.
Rumsfeld is extremely brilliant and articulate. It's always been fun watching the pathetic fools in the LSM attempt to duel with him. Talk about being outclassed. I look forward to reading his book.
America was well served by men like them. We need more of them now, more than ever.
When the history is written, sans the corrupted version from the left, both Rumsfeld and Cheney will be held in the highest of esteem.
jack wheatley | 4.6.11 @ 9:21AM
Good and balanced review of Rummy's book and his career. So different from the hatchett job in National Review by some lackey who worked for the disaster, Colin Powell. Instead of a fair review all we got in National Review was a smart aleck attempt to justify the sneaky Powell. Jack Wheatley royal Oak Mi
Derek Leaberry| 4.6.11 @ 9:31AM
Rumsfeld has come out for repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" which reveals that he is no friend of conservatives or common morality. He is a stalwart soldier in the army of decadence and an enemy to Christianity and Western Civilization.
Jean| 4.6.11 @ 9:55AM
Anthony, I am with you. Thank you Mr Rumsfeld!
Steve A| 4.6.11 @ 10:08AM
Rumsfeld was & is a good man, period.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.6.11 @ 10:13AM
Anthony,
Thank you for your comments.
Folks,
over at NRO there is a continuing videotape series of Rummy talking with their interviewer.
Absolutely fascinating how Rummy talks about his mistakes and his thoughts....and how we can do better.
Handy| 4.6.11 @ 10:27AM
I voted for Rumsfeld in the 1998 Republican primary. If he had won, we would have been spared the disaters of Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43. I doubt we would have been saddled with the Obamonster today.
Handy| 4.6.11 @ 10:28AM
Make that 1988.
Ned the Red| 4.6.11 @ 10:36AM
I am almost done reading the book. It is informative and interesting in its honesty. It just dawned on me this morning, he was Secretary of Defense (war) when I enlisted and then when my youngest son enlisted (cool). I do not remember memorizing his name when we were learning the chain of command, but I am sure I did. I ought to dig out my old boot-camp notebooks and decipher the scribbles (everything was written under extreme stress) just to see his name second from the top.
Appleby| 4.6.11 @ 11:46AM
My sister and I were on our way back to Canada from Road Atlanta (Petit Le Mans) the day Mr. Rumsfeld announced that we were at war with Afghanistan. Many, many cars pulled over to the roadside to listen to his pressie. We agreed that we will not see that happen again in our lifetimes.
Redstateboy| 4.6.11 @ 11:58AM
He always reminded me of my dear old "Uncle Stanley" - how could ya Not like a guy like that?
C Bowen| 4.6.11 @ 2:41PM
Rummy confirmed that there were no WMDS, and no WMDs were moved to Syria, a lie peddled by amongst others the reviewers husband, and yet she did not mention that?
Give me a break.
Dixie Pixie| 4.6.11 @ 4:20PM
Am I the only one in the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" to consider SecDef Rumsfeld to be a complete disaster and the cause of the Iraq and Afghan War failures.
PS....Why does the (Reply To) function button keep disappearing?
vtwin| 4.6.11 @ 4:43PM
Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory Wednesday, based on results reported by the Associated Press.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.6.11 @ 6:02PM
Pixie,
evidently the reply function set off too many flame wars...or at least enabled them.
PS: would you even understand what a "war failure" is?
Alan Brooks| 4.6.11 @ 6:10PM
Rumsfeld was a hung ho sadist whom Bush was correct (Bush like his dad had a great deal of good qualities mixed in with very bad ones) to sack. But naturally Midge Decter is going to do a puff piece on Rumsfeld.
Rummy was Patton without the great charm.
Alan Brooks| 4.6.11 @ 6:11PM
... correction, I meant gung ho, but 'hung ho' has a ring to it after all.
Alan Brooks| 4.6.11 @ 6:19PM
PS: "would you even understand what a 'war failure' is?"
You don't how right you are-- for once we agree Hope you don't think I'm being a brownoser, Tex, as you don't like that. My uncle Paul (who worked for Sinclair oil) and aunt Marion lived right near the Alamo, and from them it could be seem Texans mince no words! there was a mini-Alamo skirmish with them every night.
Joe R| 4.6.11 @ 7:38PM
Rumsfeld is a great American. I'd vote for him over any of the potential GOP candidates out there right now.
Dixie Pixie| 4.6.11 @ 8:05PM
Pardon my syntax Ken(Old Texan).
War failure....That's when you can military win in 41 days but are still losing after 10 years.
The Iraq War / Gulf War II was supposed to take no more than 6 months, cost no more than 60 billion dollars and be compensated out of oil revenues. The only success was to make sure Iraq did not have any WMD's. The Iraqis never had them so that mission was accomplished. All else was a failure!
Ken if you had a manager that had Trillion Dollar losses instead of breaking even, still could not complete the job after years of work instead of completing the job in days and fogged up his performance in a cloud of lies and cliches, would you consider him a success?
PS...Webmaster please bring back the (Reply To) function.
The above reply to clarify my error in syntax to Ken is a classic usage of the (Reply To) function.
It is very confusing to post a reply several posts down.
Chris Pedersen| 4.6.11 @ 8:05PM
I recall him before 9/11 as he was settling into the job, saying his was obliged to cut defense spending to curtail, fraud,waste and abuse and get spending in the range to a managable amount, without hurting our defense, I think it was in the range of 20% cut, I may be in error, but I was pleased at that time he was comitted to the issue of fraud, waste, & abuse.
That along with the Prosection of those who commit fraud, injure our troops by stripping those resorces for their own personal gain. They belong in Federal prison. Period. I don't know if he ever got around to fulfill that goal because then came 9/11.
For no other reason, I thought then, and still that GWB and Rummy got a raw deal from the [M]axist [S]tatist [M]edia as do the Consevatives today.
The Consevatives need to learn how to bloody some lips and blacken some eyes, like a great street fighter. America as we know it is at stake.
I know after living in the Mobbed-Up 11th Ward of the Daley Dynasty for 30 years of Jackass Ditatorship and highway robbery. Now think real hard, who now is Obama's Present Chief Of Staff and who is the Present Mayor Elect of Chicago?
The Mob is now Directly in the Oval Office!!
Look up former 1st Ward Alderman and convicted ["Made Member" of the "Chicago Outfit"] Fred Roti, former 11th Ward Patrick Huels, Mike Tobin[Marina Cartage] Fred Barbara former Trash Hauler. Tobin/Barbara are Cousins and Nephews of Roti's. Daley/Roti/Tobin/Barbara=massive contracts.
Google "The Hired Truck Scandal" and hold on tight! Drag this out "IN YOUR FACE OBAMA, But do the Conservatives have the Moral Fortitude to do so?
We must call the libs all liars when in fact they do lie, distort, and use propaganda for political gain, otherwise it's the Same "Old",Same "Old" Cream Puff Sissy Politicians. Trench Warfare is now the name of the game to save America, against the Tyranny of the Professional "Bomb Throwers" via, Obama, Pelosi, and Harry "The War Is Lost" Reid and the DNC in toto.
I'm old enough to remember The 20 Mule Team Borax Commericals. The Mule/Donkey is the "Icon" of the libs. Obama is the driver of the lead wagon of the 331 Jackass Team of Crooks Liars & Thieves of Congress, all sitting in the Manure Wagons of Horse-sh*t,Horse-sh*t, and more Horse-sh*t these idiots are delutional and need to be drug tested period!
Watch out for the Olive Oil on the Steps of the White House, the Rule Of Gangster Government is now in the House.
Welcome To The United States Of "LaCosa Nostra" America!
Skip the Home Made Beer and Pass the Cannolis.
Alan Brooks| 4.6.11 @ 8:33PM
"Pardon my syntax Ken(Old Texan).
War failure....That's when you can military win in 41 days but are still losing after 10 years."
Ken's was a botched rhetorical question, did we ever hear of 'war failure'? we sure enough did; it's not a rout such as Vietnam, but we all know a long road is ahead until Iraq and Afghanistan are pacified.
Dave Trap| 4.6.11 @ 8:45PM
Don Rumsfeld would have been a great President, he had more experience at 29 than Obama does at 49.
Come to think of it, I dont think Obama was even a good community organizer.
Alan Brooks| 5.3.11 @ 10:11AM
In debt to Rummy? well the war was debt-financed.
Dixie Pixie| 4.6.11 @ 9:53PM
Greetings Ken and Alan.
Let me further argue from a Taft-Conservative position that SecDef Rumsfeld was a disaster.
First let us define what a military "Victory" looks like.
Granada was a perfect example.
First.........Hit hard with overwhelming military force.
Second....Destroy or neutralize the enemies military force so it not be a political factor in the next steps.
Third.......Kill or imprison the enemies upper governmental personal and above all else KILL THE KING.
Fourth.....Impose thy political will on the conquered populace and impose thy social order at all cost.
Fifth........Impose a new government to the liking of ones supporters.
Sixth.......Leave as soon as possible because in 6 months the population will turn from viewing the army as liberators to viewing the army as occupiers.
Seventh...Leave the new government to its fate.
If it falls that is not your problem.
If it succeeds then all is well.
Eight.......Bring the troops home for a really big Victory party leaving no doubt that a Victory was won.
Ninth......Repeat as often as necessary until the enemy populace understands that irritating America will bring a military response.
An American military action should be like a sudden tropical downpour, temporary, sudden, overwhelming and cleaning the political sector out for bright new faces.
This sequence worked perfectly in Granada, Panama and to a lesser extent, Gulf War I.
Unfortunately SecDef Rumsfeld did not know what he was doing and could never produce a military Victory even after years of trying.
PS....The Taft-Conservative wing viewed Pax America as a really bad idea.
Taking over the duties of the British Empire without the revenue from the protected could only bring financial disaster by involving America in endless unprofitable foreign wars.
In short, America would be bleed white until the entire faux military empire imploded.
Mike W| 4.6.11 @ 10:10PM
Rummy is still a dummy. Probably one of the dumbest men in America.
Because of him, and Jr. and Dick, we got the Democrats in 2006 and B.O. in 2008. Revising history to make him look better detracts from the credibility of this site.
He did conservatives and the country no favors.
Marc Jeric| 4.6.11 @ 11:29PM
I read his book with interest. Rumsfeld is too kind when talkind about those commie vultures working for American defeat, the so-called Democrats and their MSM acolytes.
Dixie Pixie| 4.7.11 @ 12:28AM
Greetings Alan and Ken
Now that we know what a Military Victory looks like let us analyze where SecDef Rumsfeld went wrong.
First....The Military Reforms of 1948 centralized all military activity in the office of the Presidency.
That was a mistake as the President has far greater political responsibilities than dealing with a piss-ant war in foreign lands.
The Goldwater Military Reforms were a correction to give the Regional Military Commanders the responsibilities for conducting a War in their areas of responsibilities.
In short, the Regional Military Commanders were to act as a American version of a Japanese Shogunate.
SecDef Rumsfeld deliberately subverted that concept to micro-manage the Iraq War from the SecDef office.
Second....SecDef Rumsfeld deliberately did not use overwhelming military force leading to further military / political failures.
Third......SecDef Rumsfeld did not destroy the Iraq military forces allowing them to regroup for the Iraq Insurgency.
Fourth.....SecDef Rumsfeld greatest failure was he did not try to impose a political order on Iraq.
His theory was "The Iraq Government steps up and the American Government steps down".
That was a stupidity in that a Iraqi personal would never "step up" just to be shot at by all sides.
SecDef Rumsfeld never understood that a military / political order must be imposed by the conqueror.
He never tried to do so.
Fifth....He tried to micro-manage the Iraq government dynamics without knowing anything about the Iraqi people, their Ethos, their history or their population dynamics.
Thus every action he tried only made matters worse.
Sixth....He never moved his Command Headquarters to Iraq so as to get real-time intelligence on what was going on in Iraq.
He was seduced into thinking that the advancements in military communications were a substitute for getting a feel for what was going on in Iraq, thus he compounded the above failures.
Seventh....SecDef Rumsfeld never understood the collapse of a Iraq Government and the failure to impose a American Social Order left a political vacuum that the surrounding governments were quick to exploit thus deepening and widening the resulting Iraq Insurgency.
Eight.....He always thought the Iraq War would be "Won" or "Lost" in the Washington Salons and Offices not on the battlefields of Iraq.
Thus all his efforts were to make himself look good in Washington at the expense of winning the military / political battles in Iraq.
Ninth.....He never took responsibly for his actions preferring to work through cutouts such as Paul Bremer and the general staff.
This allowed Rumsfeld to look better than he was because his failures were always pushed onto someone else.
As a result he was never had to deal with his failures or correct them as they were another persons problem.
Tenth.....SecDef Rumsfeld was conceptually blind as to what was really going on in Iraq because he relied on management by memo (RE..The Rumsfeld Snowflakes).
He did not realize a memo was never a substitute for actuality being on-site.
No memo can contain all the relevant information needed to understand a situation.
In fact once a memo passes through several command structures it will be modified until the original information is lost.
Thus a reliance on eyesight through memos is guaranteed to give a false impression of what was going on.
Thus no action based on false information could be correct.
Error magnified Error until both the Afghan and Iraq Wars were hopeless.
In short, SecDef mucked up by the numbers and left the US a disaster that will take years to cleanup.
Finally it was SecDef Rumsfeld who bears the primary responsibly for the Afghan and Iraq War debacles.
He was the man in office in office and in charge.
His new book is simply a further effort to avoid that responsibility.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:47PM
is good