Neo-cons can't escape responsibility for their Iraq miscalculations
By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Washington - The most curious turn of the worm this season is the attack by the neo-conservatives on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq.
It should be noted that untill now Rumsfeld was the darling of that same bunch. He hired a batch of them as his most trusted aids and assistants in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz as his undersecretary. Douglas Feith as his chief of planning. He installed the dean of the pack, Richard Perle, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board for a time.
The doyenne and room mother of the whole bunch, Midge Decter, wrote a fawning biography of Rumsfeld titled "Rumsfled: A Personal Portrait."
Now, suddenly, the voice of the neo-conservative movement, William Kristol, editor of The Standard. suggests that Rumsfeld has fouled up everything in Iraq and ought to be fired for his failures. Ditto, writes Tom Donnelly of the right-thinking American Enterprize Institute.
Rumsfeld himself was never a neo-conservative. He just found them useful as he took over the Pentagon for the second time. Clearly the neo-cons found Rumsfeld useful as well as they pushed their ideas on transforming the Middle East.
So what happened? Why is Rumsfeld being stabbed in the back by those he trusted the most to back his play? By the very people who have argued for years in favor of taking out Saddam Hussein, installing democracy and creating a bully pulpit, and the military bases, from which the Middle East would be weaned from dictatorship and an implacable hatred of Israel and the United States.
Now those folks who cheered Rumsfeld, and the Bush administration, the loudest of all nearly two years ago are marching behindsuch grumpy Republicans as Sen. John McChain of Arizona and Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska in laying much of the blame at the feet of Rumsfeld.
The sharpening attacks on the defense secretary as the old year fades and the new year approaches prompted the one man who has a vote on Rumsfeld's survival, President Bush, to step forward and praise him. That, in turn, prompted a semi-spirited defense of the secretary by Republican congressional leaders.
Rumsfeld himself, who has basically no people skills at all, found it politic to spend the holidays with the soldiers and Marines in Iraq. He was even pictured wearing an apron and serving up turkey and dressing in an Army mess hall in the desert. How could anyone think, he asked, that he is not totally commited to providing those troops everything they need for survival in a bad place?
We do not suggest for a minute that Rumsfled be let off the hook, be absolved of responsibility for gross miscalculations and the gross lack of planning in the Iraq war and, especially, the post war period. But neither do we absolve the neo-conservatives for their shooting the horse they've been riding the last four years.
They were the loudest proponents of an attack on Iraq from the begining. It was the neo-conservatives who wanted to unleash the dogs of war. It was they who championed Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraq National Congress and saw that their bogus defector tales of Saddam's nuclear weapons program and his stockpiles of chemical and bio;ogical weapons gained attention and traction.
They believed Chalabi and The INC's predictions that American troops would be welcomed with showers of rose petals and there be no need for an American Occupation. Ergo, no need for anyone to actually plan to secure the country in the wake of victory or lay the groundwork for rebuilding a nation whose water, power and sewer services were falling apart before we bombed and shelled them.
When Rumsfeld goes, so too should every neo-conservative who squirmed his way into a Pentagon sinecure. They must also bear responsibility for a war that has cost nearly $200 billion and the lives of more than 1,300 American troops and has damaged America's standing in the world.
They cannot be allowed to load all the blame on Rumsfled and scoot away to lick their wounds and dream again their large dreams of conquest and empire and pre-emptive strikes.
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