May 19, 2004

Accountability

Some people besides grunts are taking responsibility for the abuses (not atrocities, that was Saddam's "fun") at Abu Ghraib. However, Bush bashers won't like it because Rumsfeld and the President aren't falling on their swords. Instead, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of Persian Gulf forces, told Senators, "We have a real problem with ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] reports and the way that they're handled and the way that they move up and down the chain of command," Abizaid said. ". . . We've got a problem there that's got to be fixed." He also said, "And we should have known. And we should have uncovered it and taken action before it got to the point that it got to."

From this testimony, we see that while the Iraq War was a stunning achievement in its quick victory with a small force, occupation requires more manpower. Rumsfeld proved that invasion could be done with high tech and highly efficient troops. The problem was with the aftermath. Paul Wolfowitz conceded that the post-war insurections are more intense than the Pentagon predicted. Maybe Rumsfeld had plans to transform post-war and peacekeeping efforts, but Sept. 11 put a wrench in the works for continued transformation. I do doubt that because until Sept. 11 President Bush gave short shrift to messy stuff like nation building.

"System Failures Cited for Delayed Action on Abuses"