Robert S. McElvaine: “You’re Doin’ a Heck of a Job, Rummy!”
You're doin' a heck of a job Rummy! That, in essence, is what President Bush said in a prepared statement after six retired generals had taken the unprecedented step of calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq.
Anyone who believes that Rumsfeld is doing a good job hasn't been paying attention. He has been arrogantly wrong from the start, refusing to send enough troops or body armor and having no plan for fighting an insurgency. Republican strategist Mary Matalin unintentionally spoke the truth recently on the Today show: "Rumsfeld's done an incredible job." Exactly: literally incredible.
Rumsfeld has, in the assessment of Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command, turned our top military officials into "Stepford generals." Those who do not scream with delight at what he does to them and shout, "You're the champion!" are dismissed.
"We've made tactical errors-thousands of them, I'm sure," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said. But, she insisted, the Bush administration made "the right strategic decision." Which is to say: The military isn't doin' much of a job, but we in the administration are doin' a heck of job.
Ms. Rice has it just backwards. The American military is doing a tremendous job in a horrible situation into which this administration needlessly put it. It is precisely the strategic decisions that have been totally wrong from the start.
You're doin' a heck of a job, Condi!
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz rejected Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's pre-war estimate that it might require several hundred thousand U.S. troops as "wildly off the mark." Shinseki turned out to be on the mark and Wolfowitz wildly off it. The Bush administration publicly criticized Shinseki and forced him out; Wolfowitz was rewarded with presidency of the World Bank.
You're doin' a heck of a job, Wolfie!
Vice President Dick Cheney, the Liar-in-Chief, claimed-indeed, he continues to claim-that Saddam was connected to the 9-11 attacks, although there has never been the slightest indication that it is true. Cheney predicted that our troops would be greeted as liberators, that the war would be over in a few weeks, and that its cost would be negligible and paid for by Iraqi oil revenues. Almost a year ago, he declared that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its final throes."
"The commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold has said of Cheney and other architects of this war of bad choice.
Mr. Cheney had "other priorities" during Vietnam, but is eager to send others off to die in a war on which he has been wrong on every count.
You're doin' a heck of a job, Dickie!
Then there is the man who followed the Neo-conmen. George W. Bush squandered the support of the world after 9-11 by manipulating intelligence and giving false reasons for going to war. He led the United States into "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."
Bush leaked misinformation about Iraq attempting to buy uranium while he kept classified the correct, contrary information. He proclaimed "Mission Accomplished" three years ago. He said if insurgents wanted to attack American troops, "Bring it on," that he would go to war again even knowing that Saddam had no WMD, that he would do it with the same number of troops . . . . The list goes on.
You're doin' a heck of a job, Dubya!