Rumsfeld's unknowns overwhelm his knowns
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Rumsfeld's unknowns overwhelm his knowns
In our world, narratives and theories get strung out over a period of time until it’s like they’re chisled in stone as truth -- notwithstanding the fact they are totally based in mid-air without any roots or substance.
— Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking Wednesday night at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Rumsfeld, arguably the most contentious figure to run the Pentagon since the Vietnam era, wasn’t talking about the controversial run-up to the Iraq War — when cases for weapons of mass destruction there and terror ties to al-Qaeda — vanished into that very same ether.
Instead, prompted by moderator and presidential historian Michael Beschloss, the 78-year-old stalwart of the George W. Bush regime was relating a mostly forgotten episode over whether he’d sabotaged Bush’s father’s shot at becoming Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976.
That’s pretty much how things went down for roughly 700 people who packed the center for a rare public appearance by Rumsfeld, who chose Philadelphia as the first stop on a national tour to promote his new memoir called Known and Unknown.
Known, after Rumsfeld’s talk? The minute details of the time that Sammy Davis Jr. took him and his wife backstage at a Las Vegas nightspot to meet Elvis Presley.
Not known? Anything new about the torture scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison that took place during Rumsfeld’s tenure and damaged America’s reputation. That subject never even came up.
But then, neither did a wide range of critical moments during Rumsfeld’s six years in the Bush cabinet, from the location of Osama bin Laden to his unwillingness to lift the ban on gays serving openly in the military to even the war in Afghanistan iself, which has lingered long into Rumsfeld’s retirement.
Sharply attired in a navy blue suit, seated with hands clasped and uttering “Oh my gosh” in response to about every third or fourth question, Rumsfeld made it feel like 2003 all over again during much of the 70-minute session.
The same could arguably be said about the one controversial topic Rumsfeld did attempt to address in detail last night: The case for the war in Iraq.
Just as the public saw eight years ago, Rumsfeld threw out a jumbled kitchen sink of reasons for invading a country that had not attacked us on Sept. 11. These included violations of the “no fly zone” over Iraq, fears that Saddam Hussein might somehow attack the U.S. in smallpox (a threat that even Fox News debunked at the time), and the subsequent fact that Libya abandoned its weapons program in the wake of the U.S. attack in the region.
Of course, some of the key reasons given to Americans at the time — such an allegation that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Africa — have long since been tossed down the memory hole.
Answering one of only a couple of audience questions on index cards that were filtered through Beschloss, Rumsfeld said of the different between the Iraq War and Vietnam: “The Vietnamese were not likely to come and attack the United States of America.”
Yet the CIA reported in October 2002 that it was unlikely that Iraq would launch any type of chemical or biological attack against America — unless we provoked the regime by attacking them.
Beschloss gave Rumsfeld an opportunity at the end to explain what he’d tell a family that lost a loved one in Iraq. He answered that when he and his wife met with wounded soldiers at military hospitals: “We came out of those meetings feeling inspired — not that we had helped them, but they had helped us.”
Indeed, Rumsfeld conceded that it’s hard today to give a simple explanation — as you could with World War II — what the Iraq war and related terrorism conflicts were all about.
“It is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “It is a competition of ideas. For whatever reason, we are hestitant and not skillful in engaging in the competition of ideas.”
Last night in America’s founding city, the competition of ideas did not involve journalists. There would be no news conference or interviews, no questions from the press at all and few from the public except several pre-screened by Beschloss.
Nevertheless, I grabbed an index card and wrote down a question, in the wildly futile hope that the moderator might select it. I wanted to know why — on the early afternoon of Sept. 11, with the Pentagon still on fire — Rumsfeld scribbled notes later made public about his desire to go after not just bin Laden but Saddam as well.
But like a lot of questions last night, that one remains somewhere in the “unknown” pile.
Great job Rummy. Thank you for your service. Tubs I'm glad your just a left wing wimp with conspiracy theories dancing in you're head and not one of our leaders.
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"More Americans have now died in Afghanistan in Lord Obama's War than did under President Bush." . . . . . . . Oh yeah, the war Bush forgot to fight.- Comment removed.
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The Obama "regime" must be going swimmingly, since you have to constantly reach into the past to generate topics.— RG- How come it is the "George W. Bush regime” but a "Barack Obama Presidency".. Will, this was a book signing, I am sure when you did your book signings at local flea markets and free public libraries you understand it is an event arranged by the publisher to talk up the book, if you went there expecting confrontation and hard questions you were mistaken. Incidentally, 1210 carried and interview with him yesterday afternoon in which he was asked that question – pay attention.— shock89
- Rumsfeld assumed strategic responsibility for launching an invasion without sufficient knowledge of the region. His ignorance costs lives and valuable resources. He disregarded, in fact at times undermined, the advice and counsel of knowledgeable experts.
For example, he was advised that he needed a larger invasion force and that the post-invasion scenario would be far more complicated than what he was predicting due to sectarian strife. He signed-off on the Iraqi military being disbanded - a disastrous decision which ran counter to the recommendations of numerous military analyses.
And now he refuses to be accountable for his disastrous decisions.
Gee. Terrible decisions. Willful ignorance of facts. Complete lack of accountability. Does anyone know if Rumsfeld is a Republican?— Talking point sleuth - Rumsfield was the same way on the television last week. There is no denying he is an intelligent man, but his smugness and arrogance have undoubtedly led to unneccessary American deaths. Rumsfield is either unable to see or unwilling to admit his mistakes and that's a shame.— PattyB23
- What is known is ineptness, incompetence and inconceivableness of what the facts on the ground are and utilizing that knowledge during tenure in office.
What is unknown is how with hindsight the ability to rationalize seems to be unhindered??? - "In our world, narratives and theories get strung out over a period of time until it’s like they’re chisled (sic) in stone as truth -- notwithstanding the fact they are totally based in mid-air without any roots or substance."...why was Rumsfeld talking about AGW theory at the National Constitution Center?— 2ndNlong
- MSL - library? What is that? I got a free copy from AMZN on my Kindle.— AngryWhiteMale
- By the way, I want to thank the Tea Party for making it safe to check out the Communist Manifesto at the library, and dial up my jihadi brothers once again. Ah, freedom's good.
- "Indeed, Rumsfeld conceded that it’s hard today to give a simple explanation...." . . . . Oil isn't that complicated an explanation, Rummy. It's just hard to tell the truth.
- Rumsfeld is a brilliant man. That is a fact. Unfortunately his superior intelligence, coupled with multiple appointments to powerful positions, in multiple presidential administrations, left him blinded by his conviction that just no one knew what the real deal was, except him. His arrogance was most evident to the miltary as he, on a daily basis, tampered with highly complex plans of deployment and the logistics necessary to accomplish them. But, that is a whole other story. As for the strategic decision to invade Iraq; the military wasn't convinced they had WMD capability, but, they weren't convinced they didn't either. We simply weren't certain. We did know he gassed thousands of Kurdish men, women, and children. Still, the closely held opinion of most generals seemed to be that we should concentrate on finishing the mission in Afghanistan, and see what develops with, or in, Iraq afterward. However, once the decision to invade Iraq was made by the civilian leadership another word about the wisdom of going to Iraq was never heard from the generals. AND, that is their role in a civilian controlled military that is established in the Constitution. Only POTUS makes the decision to go (Constitutionalist will argue that he can't do that without the preauthorization of the congress, others will counter that only the congress can make a declaration of war, but, POTUS can order our military into action anytime he see fit to defend the interests or enforce the treaties of this country) Of course, I believe Rumsfeld strongly supported a go to war with Iraq strategy, and did have significant influence with POTUS.— uppdben
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- There are known unknowns everywhere. Thanks for using the Eisenburg principle to explain international affairs. Why not call it dark matter Rumsy, you never pulled the wool over these eyes.— hallux
- I was there. Never liked him, but, stupid? He wasn't!!!— uppdben
- First off, thank you for your service, Up. But why do you say the Defense Secretary was not stupid? Do you have something to add to this discussion? Did you or your unit find WMDs? Did you find a reason you and your friends had to fight for your lives and kill to do it? Understand that I think you guys are heroes. I can’t even imagine what you had to endure, day to day, just to stay alive, and I, as an American, can never repay you for your sacrifice. But what I can do is question American policy because I do care about heroes like you. We are the good guys and I just want to make sure we always act like it.
— Hamlet 
Rumsfeld is a f**kin moron and his stupidity got soldiers killed, I hope he spends eternity haunted by the men his ineptitude had killed.— PAEnglish- Definition of a Republican toady? Anyone who would defend Rumsfeld. Even if you ignore the faulty reasoning and deception behind the rationale for the invasion, it is undeniable that he presided over the development of a disastrous post-invasion plan. And if that weren't bad enough, he failed to acknowledge his mistakes and for months insisted that things were going just swimmingly and failed to adjust. Even if you accept the premise of the invasion, his complete incompetence led to thousands of unnecessary American casualties, thousands of unnecessary Iraqi civilian deaths, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, and the creation of conditions where entire swaths of Iraq were ethnically cleansed by jihadis training to kill Americans and civilians in other locations. How pathetic that anyone would make excuses for a complete failure for the sake of toadyistic partisanship. Just another night at Attytood - eh?— Talking point sleuth
- Couple things. First off, batty, turns out liberals give more to charities as percent of their income. If you remove what the rich rightists give to write themselves off into a lower tax bracket, liberals give more period. I believe Gallup is the source on that, but I'll have to check. Other thing, though I know it is a travesty what Rumsfeld did, how about some more blogs about the policies the Tea Party is trying to push through. They had grandiose ideas, none of which made sense, so let's see what they're doing. So far all I've read about was useless ideological attacks and a lack of any policy identity, though they are going after Planned Parenthood funding, which strictly affects the poor and middle class.— HandNik
- “The Vietnamese were not likely to come and attack the United States of America.” Well, he did say something that is true. You have to give him that, Will. That the Iraqis had as much chance of that as the Viet Minh ("Viet Cong" was a term invented by the CIA) is another matter, Mr. Secretary, right?
— Hamlet - Comment removed.
- nothing like trying to quash debate huh hicks. would like to have met rummy would have been an honor— rysagr
- What debate have I tried to quash there, Monsieur? And who else is on your hero wall? Goering?
- slurs against people you disagree with — rysagr
- why don't you grow up — rysagr
- Why don't you, you big baby. Awwwwww, little ums got his feelings hurt. *sniffle* You right wingers can dish it out but sure can't take it.
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- Bats, how many liberal bloggers have you insulted today with absolutely no impact? You must be proud.
- BHL, you have to understand that the right thinks of us as people who are smarter than them, more educated and therefore people who can “silence” them merely by expressing our opinions in opposition to theirs. Take it as a compliment. — Hamlet
- this poor excuse for a man had no qualms sending soliers into battle with inferior transportation. it is always the ones who never served yelling "charge". rumsfelds #1 horses tomatoe!! and a coward.a skunk couldn't be jealous of this stinking wad.— Miss M.
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- I'm sure you were first in line to meet Rumsfeld batboy. Did you wear the leather chaps or the Liza Minelli outfit?
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- batboy are you being sensitive this evening? Must mean it was the Liza outfit, you're much tougher when you wear the leather chaps with the cheeks cut out.
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- Right on schedule Right Writer! Congratulations!
- But what remains "known" is your insufferable smugness and hopeless liberal bias. Bunch, you haven't a hunch -- and even less punch. You and you're gang are out to lunch, and have been since the 60s.— RightWriter
- Known: That right wing trolls will post here something attacking Will and regurgitating FOX news talking points. Commence countdown 5...4...3...2...1...
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