Word: rumsfeldism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...revelations in Bob Woodward’s insider account of the White House at war with Iraq was that, contrary to what Bush now says, the decision to go to war was made well in advance. We know this because, in an interview, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recalled telling a foreign official (almost certainly Saudi Prince Bandar) about the plans in January. (It now appears that Bandar knew of the decision before Colin Powell.) But the quote from Rumsfeld’s taped, transcribed interview with Woodward, in which he described telling Bandar that he could...
...President Dick Cheney pushed forcefully for the payout, saying, "We are nickel-and-diming the I.N.C. when they are providing critical intelligence" on Iraq's WMD. Oversight of Chalabi's information operation was shifted from the skeptics at State to the Pentagon, where his champions included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz...
...some ways, of course, he did. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is candid in saying that no one expected fighting like this a full year after the fall of Baghdad. But any judgment about the President's judgments requires context. First, the context of the war on terrorism, which means examining the entire post--Sept. 11 ledger. That includes more than just the past two weeks of bloodletting in Iraq. It includes overthrowing the Taliban, liberating Afghanistan, scattering and decimating alQaeda, deposing Saddam Hussein, disarming Libya and turning Pakistan from supporter of the Taliban (and by extension alQaeda) into perhaps...
Sure, it would have been nice if Bush had said, "Yes, we erred. Perhaps we should not have disbanded the Iraqi army." Would saying that have won him praise for his candor? Not in the poisoned climate of Washington today. Last July, Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, returned from Iraq with a balanced and honest assessment of what the allies had done right and wrong in the immediate postwar period. What was the next morning's Washington Post headline? WOLFOWITZ GIVES NUANCED ASSESSMENT OF IRAQ SITUATION? No. WOLFOWITZ CONCEDES IRAQ ERRORS, followed by a brief for the Administration's critics...
...soft Colin Powell, with oblique Pottery Barn warnings: You break it, you own it. Powell is the only war-Cabinet member who seems to be asking the right questions, but he never raises them with the President. The anguished meekness of the portrait is devastating. Even blustery Donald Rumsfeld comes off better...