CAKEWALK REDEFINED
Let the Iraqis Eat Cake. Or Something Else. We’ll Walk. Donald Rumsfeld today revealed what everybody already knows. The battle against insurgents will take longer than the rose petalled predictions the Bush administration offered. Rumsfled effectively confirms the truth behind the Downing Street Memos. If twelve years was part of the Bush plan all along and Bush didn’t tell the American public that, Rumsfeld effectively is calling Bush a liar.
NOTE TO WHITE HOUSE REPORTERS COURT STENOGRAPHERS: Ask Scott McClellan about this once, then twice, until you get an answer.
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday he is bracing for even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency "could go on for any number of years."
Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, he said, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.
--snip--
Rumsfeld, making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, said insurgents want to disrupt the democratic transformation as Iraqi leaders draft a constitution and plan for elections in December to choose a full-term government.
"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections," the Pentagon chief told NBC's "Meet the Press." And after then, it will take a long time to drive out insurgents."
"Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency," he said.
"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday."
[ABC NEWS]
Somebody should also clue in Cheney. Last throes apparently take at least twelve years.
UPDATED 10 PM EST: MORE WISDOM FROM RUMSFELD
Now this is where it gets really scary.
Iraqis are supposed to vote in December on a government to be outlined in the constitution. "There is no Ho Chi Minh or Mao (Zedong) there," Rumsfeld said, referring to the famed revolutionary leaders in Vietnam and China.
"There's a Jordanian terrorist who's killing Iraqi people. There's no national movement in that country. They don't have a vision. They're losers, and they're going to lose," he said. Rumsfeld said Iraqi security forces have gained respect among the Iraqi people. He suggested that the ability of insurgents to kill in large numbers does not mean public support is diminishing or that political, economic and security progress has been lacking.
"It doesn't take a genius to go blow up a restaurant or attack a police station, a suicide bomber. You can kill — a kid with a suicide vest can kill a lot of people," the secretary said. "Does that mean that the population is 'going south' and there's no plan and no progress? No, it doesn't mean that at all," he said.
[SF GATE]
Rumsfeld says the insurgents will lose. So they must lose. Rumsfeld belittles the opponents of the most powerful army in the world. There's no national movement in that country. They don't have a vision. They're losers . . . But this rag tag bunch of nobodies has battled the United States army to at least a draw so far. One can only imagine how much worse things would be going if at least one of the sides had a vision. It would be great if our side had one.
UPDATED 10:30 PM EST: LAUGHTER FROM RUMSFELD
Ron Brynaert at [WhyAreWeBackInIraq?] has the scoop on the No Fly Zone Early Strikes. Rumsfeld says he ordered them because . . . he didn’t like it. Then he laughs about it all.
Department of Defense briefing from September 16, 2002, with Gen. Peter Pace, Vice-Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld (defenselink.mil):
Q: "General Pace, you didn't really answer whether -- is that laying the groundwork for an Iraqi strike? In other words, why the change on this? Some might say this was just laying the groundwork"
Rumsfeld: "Well, it can't hurt. I directed it."
Q: "Why did you direct it?"
Rumsfeld: "Because it seemed right at the time. The -- I don't like the idea of our planes being shot at. We're there implementing U.N. resolutions. The -- it's not just the United States. It's the British, the coalition forces involved. And the idea that our planes go out and get shot at with impunity bothers me."
Q: "Can you --"
Q: "When did you direct the change?"
Rumsfeld: "And I don't like it. I don't like it. And so what we are doing is we are attempting to, in an orderly way, as the general indicated, arrange our response options in a way that we think -- hope -- we hope will be net harmful to their capabilities on the ground. We can't know for sure if it has been net harmful, but our intention is to make it net harmful."
Q: "But is this laying the groundwork for Iraq? That's the question."
Rumsfeld: "The President hasn't made a decision with respect to Iraq. Didn't I say that earlier? I thought I said that."
Q: "When did you order the change?"
Q: "When did you order this? When did this change take place, Mr. Secretary?"
Rumsfeld: "Hmm."
Q: "Now?" (Laughter.)
Rumsfeld: "Less than a year -- less than a year and more than a week." (Laughter.) I think less than six months and more than a month."
Q: "Okay."
Rumsfeld: "But I can't remember. I don't keep track of all -- I don't keep notes."
Q: "Can you take my question, please?"
Q: "Could someone take that question and get back to us?"
Q: "General, do you remember?"
Pace: "I remember it happening since I've been here, which was 1 October last year."
Rumsfeld: (Laughs.)
Pace: "Which is almost a year now. But I don't remember."
Q: "Will you take that question?"
Rumsfeld: "If you want to take the rhythm of what happened, what happened was that after I came, which is the extent of my knowledge -- or recollection, there had been a pattern of responses that had been relatively only marginally effective, both in the North and the South. And we were flying patterns that were getting us shot at. And our responses being what they were, at some point -- and I don't remember, I think it was this year -- at some point -- maybe it was, like, last year -- we decided, after a good deal of talk, General Pace, General Myers, others in the National Security Council, that it really did not make an awful lot of sense to be flying patterns that we were being shot at if in response, we were not doing any real damage that would make it worth putting pilots at risk. So we modified some of our flights to that they were then flying in areas that were less likely to put them at risk and more in keeping with the value of what we were achieving by doing it."
MORE >>> [WhyAreWeBackInIraq?]
Funny. Nobody's laughing about this early start to the war now. Rumsfeld's lack of memory on this will be remembered. How long will it be before he gets fired? Or indicted?
Check out the rest of Ron's work at [WhyAreWeBackInIraq?]
Did you see Cheney defend "throes"? He went straight to the Dictionary.
His rationale was that his statement was true because "throes" means: A condition of agonizing struggle or trouble: a country in the throes of economic collapse.
So, Cheney reasoned it is accurate to say the insurgency is in their last "throes".
Next time he should add that the "throes" could last 12 years.
Posted by: PoliShifter | June 26, 2005 at 06:20 PM
I have a really difficult time with this insurgent vs. guerilla argument.
and I know for a fact, that soldiers state they are fighting guerillas.
Posted by: Night Bird | June 26, 2005 at 06:30 PM
Semantics doesn't change the reality on the ground, which is that we have been there longer than we were lied, I mean led to believe.
Posted by: The Heretik | June 26, 2005 at 06:47 PM
This is almost friggin' laughable. It's heading into the "weapons of mass destruction program related activities" realm.
Good gawd, I wish I had nothing else to do but dig out prior quotes from these guys.
Posted by: Richard Cranium | June 26, 2005 at 07:05 PM
12 YEARS!?
Posted by: Karen | June 26, 2005 at 08:22 PM
Great work, my Heretik friend. The truth is hidden in plain sight and no one in the general media or public seems to see it or want to see it. Thank you for helping point the way.
Posted by: pissed off patricia | June 27, 2005 at 06:45 AM