Word: rumsfeld
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...policy—or have been so ambiguous as to seem contradictory. At one point, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced on NBC that the administration was “working for a peaceful resolution in Iraq” only two days after Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld stated on CNN that the regime change was and had been “government policy for a long time.” Under circumstances like these, presidential damage control has often been lacking, with Bush seldom clarifying these differences or taking center stage until the damage has been done...
...previous administrations the Secretary of State has negotiated the path set by the President, divining a clear path through diplomatic entanglement. The Secretary of Defense, on the other hand, has quietly plotted for worst case scenarios, taking the fore only when all else had failed—much as Rumsfeld had when he was the 13th and not the 21st Secretary of Defense. Under the Bush administration these two roles have been reversed. As a result, since Sept. 11, it has been Rumsfeld who has not only divined the course but in many cases preempted the President in making policy...
Over a summer when Powell surveyed the ground in Afghanistan and tried to calm the Middle East, Rumsfeld was already rattling the saber at Iraq. In an Oct. 24 interview on CNN, Rumsfeld pushed the regime change line in Iraq, offering no guarantee that the U.S. would back down even if Saddam Hussein were to completely disarm and comply with all U.N. regulations...
More particularly damaging was that the President had explicitly not ruled out restraint in the case of Iraq. While Rumsfeld tried to defend his position in an interview with the American Forces Press Service by saying that regime change had been policy since the Clinton administration, Bush was insisting that war with Iraq was a worst case scenario...
...Bush government the only answer can be to lick its wounds and withdraw. It may be optimistic to think that the world will forgive Bush if he replaces Rumsfeld with a better-disciplined Secretary of Defense. However, it is an absolute certainty that other nations will forgive the American people if they lead regime change by example...