Sometimes, He Sounds Like He Wants To Head For The Door Also

by Steve

One of the things that is maddening about Rummy is that for every time he says something stupid, like he did today about defining “insurgents”, he says something commonsense, like this:

(Rumsfeld) responded sharply to suggestions that United States troops alone would carry out a military strategy to "clear, hold and build" in towns and other territory formerly controlled by insurgents. The phrase has been adopted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Mr. Bush is expected to repeat it on Wednesday.

"Anyone who takes those three words and thinks it means the United States should clear and the United States should hold and the United States should build doesn't understand the situation," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "It is Iraq's country, 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country. They're not going to run it the way you would or I would or the way we do here in this country, but they're going to run it.

So, I guess that means the Shia death squads will be a bit of untidy business we should just accept?

"Our problem is that any time something needs to be done, we have a feeling we should rush in and fill the vacuum and do it ourselves. You know what happens when you do that?

"First of all, you can't do it, because it's not our country. It's their country. And the second thing that happens is they don't develop the skills and the ability and the equipment and the orientation and the habit patterns of doing it for themselves. They have to do it for themselves."

Now, you can read that statement as a somewhat clear indication that Rummy agrees with his generals that want to train the Iraqi security forces and then get the hell out of there. He also seems to be agreeing with the notion that the sooner we make the Iraqis responsible for their own security, the better for them and us. And yet how do you square his comments with his plans for maintaining large bases in Iraq, or are those Cheneyesque plans still operative if Rumsfeld is signaling that he is listening to his generals, knows he doesn’t have the troops to stay, and wants to get out too?