by Aamer Madhani
In some of the meetings former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had with retired military generals turned television news analysts, he offered sharp tongued assessments of Iraqi and American officials, according to transcripts and audio files released by the Pentagon.
As you may recall, the New York Times published an article last month that unveiled that the Pentagon was running a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the Bush administration's wartime performance by offering some retired officers special access to top Pentagon officials as well as arranging for VIP trips to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
The retired generals who worked for all the major network and cable news stations met with officials such as Rumsfeld, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chief of the Army.
Some Congressional critics were aghast at the revelation that the Pentagon was trying use the retired officers, who the network news programs billed as military analysts, to carry the department's water. The Pentagon has suspended the program, but Sen. John Kerry has called for the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation.
The Pentagon has dumped thousands of pages of documents, transcripts and audio files on its web site related to the military analysts program.
In a quick scan of some the transcripts and audio files, it's easy to see that the generals are deferential to Rumsfeld--at times they border on obsequious.
"I think you really set a tone and a presence with the media in terms of communicating in general and specific messages and so forth," one of the unidentified officers told the former defense secretary during a question-and-answer session that was held after President Bush announced he was replacing Rumsfeld but before Robert Gates had taken over at the Pentagon. "So as a citizen, I just want to say thanks."
But some of the most interesting nuggets in the transcripts are Rumsfeld dishing on some Iraqi and U.S. officials.
During the hour-long talk Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had with military officers in late 2006, Rumsfeld called the ineffectual interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari a "windsock," and anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr "a 30-year-old thug" who wants "to create a Hezbollah" in Iraq.
He also said that the U.S. envoy, to Afghanistan at the time, was better suited to be the assistant to the person running a museum.
When asked by one officer what he would do if Sadr was no longer on the scene, Rumsfeld responded, "I'd buy you a glass of champagne."
Rumsfeld added, that Sadr is "not a real cleric and not well respected. Sistani has, of course, all the respect and the (unintelligible) senior religious figure in the country, the Shia, and he doesn't like him. Sistani doesn't like him. He opposes what he does, but he at the present time has (a) survived (b) does not have perfect control over the Sadr elements."
In that same meeting, Rumsfeld had high praise for Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who at the time was the top U.S. envoy to Iraq and had previously served as the chief diplomat to Afghanistan, as a man who has "got guts."
But in the next breath, Rumsfeld ripped into Khalilzad's successor in Afghanistan, Ambassador Ronald Neuman.
"The guy who replaced him is just terrible--Neuman," Rumsfeld said. "I mean he's a career foreign service officer. He ought to be running a museum somewhere. That's also off the record. No, he ought to be assistant to the guy...I wouldn't hire the guy to push a wheelbarrow."
Another interesting exchange was about Army Gen. Eric Shinseki's comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee less than month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that he thought it would take hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to keep the peace in post-war Iraq.
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, would deride Shinseki as being wildly off-the-mark to speculate it would take more troops to occupy Iraq than to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.
The general, who was due to end his term as the chief of the army four months later, quietly retired after contradicting Rumsfeld's plan to operate with a lighter force.
According to the transcript, Rumsfeld suggested that more troops could have been sent to Iraq early in the war, but commanders on the ground didn't want them.
Here is the exchange:
Q: Hey, also your favorite subject: looking back. What's become conventional wisdom, simply Shinseki was right. If we simply had 400,000 troops or 200 or 300? What's your thought as you looked at it?
PACE: I'm sorry, sir. I didn't take the (unintelligible). I apologize.
RUMSFELD: First of all, I don't think Shinseki ever said that. I think he was pressed in a congressional hearing hard and hard and hard and over again, well, how many? And his answer was roughly the same as it would take to do the job--to defeat the regime. It would be about the right amount for post-major combat operation stabilization. And they said, "Well, how much is that?" And I think he may have said then, "Well maybe 200,000 or 300,000."
PACE: I think he said several.
Q: Several, yes, several hundred thousand.
RUMSFELD: Now it turned out he was right. The commanders--you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that's what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.
Q: Yes, they were already in queue.
RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they'd wanted them, but they didn't, so life goes on.
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Comments
I expect to see rummy as a regular on Faux News soon. Followed by Libby and Tom Delay fighting for Vannitys' job.
Posted by: bill r. | May 7, 2008 7:05 PM
"GENERAL DUGAN SPEAKS"
NOW CAN WE HAVE BACK OUR "AIR FORCE"
NOW CAN WE LISTEN TO THE "GENERALS ON THE GROUND" AND NOT ON CNN, MSNBC OR CNN.
NOW CAN WE HAVE BACK THE "AIR FORCE"
SUMMONS AFTER SUMMONS AFTER SUMMONS TO THE NON EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE VICE PRESIDENT.
NOW CAN WE HAVE BACK OUR "AIR FORCE" ARMY, NAVY AND MARINES!
INSTEAD OF THE "ENABLERS" BEING PAID "WEAPONS OF MASS MONEY"
SUMMONS AFTER SUMMONS, GENERAL AFTER GENERAL! CAN WE HAVE BACK OUR "AIR FORCE" AND AMERICA'S
"FUEL TANKERS"
IT'S OUR MEN AND WOMEN, FLYING AND DYING FOR THEIR COUNTRY, NOT "FORMER GENERAL" ON FOX! CAN WE HAVE BACK OUR "AIR FORCE"
MR. VICE PRESIDENT!
"STAND DOWN 9/11" WAS THEN! CAN WE HAVE OUR "AIR FORCE" BACK OH GREAT "DIVIDER" AND THE "DECIDER"!
Posted by: Roger Morris | May 7, 2008 7:05 PM
Fox Noise Channel is STILL using their phony "military analyst"/General even after he was outed for being a Bush flunky who was on the Pentagon's payroll.
Posted by: John E | May 7, 2008 7:29 PM
Will some brave Congressman call for a War Crimes Tribunal and put Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and all their flunkies in chains like the Abu Ghraib prisoners, then snap pictures of them and title it "Never Again" as a fitting reminder for future Administrations of the callousness of these hateful and opportunistic "faux" patriots. Rumfowitz should be penalized their federal pensions to pay to the families of the 4000 REAL PATIROTS who died for honor, not for oil.
Posted by: the truth | May 7, 2008 8:25 PM
Why isn't an official giving false information about war, or inciting more distress--during war--doing an act of treason? It was during WWII.
Posted by: Vivian | May 7, 2008 10:22 PM
Here I thought you were putting together an infamous Hall of Shame, from the Bush administration. I, like you, would start with a real rummy, Donald Rumsfeld, then I would move on to, Brownie, Chertoff, Gonzolas, Ashcroft, his supreme court nominees, they all turned out not to be forthcoming in their appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee. What, do you think their opinions will be any more forthcoming? I seriously doubt it!! Those are just a few of the infamous!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | May 7, 2008 10:55 PM
What I don't get is how these people sleep at night. They have no conscience...NONE of them. All they care about is making a buck and seeing their mug on TV. Shame on the lot of them!
Posted by: lochnessmonster | May 8, 2008 6:51 AM
I've read and seen a lot of bald-faced lies from various Republicans over the last 8 miserable years of the Bush regime, but this one just leaves me speechless. I really don't know what to say. How shameless this guy is. It's little wonder the Iraq invasion turned into the fiasco it is. This guy makes lousy decisions, bullies subordinates into accepting them, then blames them when his decisions don't pan out.
Posted by: r€nato | May 8, 2008 9:05 PM
Rumsfled is lying again.
Here's some of the truth:
Monday, April 17, 2006
"NOT ENOUGH TROOPS"
That's essentially the post-war problem we had. Paul Bremer has said that he requested an additional 50,000 but was turned down. On Sunday, another general backs up the complaint that there weren't enough troops to secure the peace: (From CNN)
BLITZER: But -- I want to bring our other generals in in a moment. But based on your firsthand observations, your firsthand knowledge, General Marks, did the defense secretary reject recommendations from military commanders for more troops?
BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Sure. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's been documented if you read General Franks' book, and the current book, "Cobra II," indicates very, very clearly, and in fact, that is in fact what happened. We requested the 1st Cavalry Division. That was denied. At a very critical point in the war, I might say.
Posted by: Steve J. | May 9, 2008 12:32 AM
SOMEBODY'S LYING
Satyam at ThinkProgress notes that in 2006, Rumsfeld claimed that the commanders on the ground in Iraq never asked for more troops:
RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.
Q: Yes, they were already in queue.
RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on.
Gen. James "Spider" Marks says the opposite:
BLITZER: But -- I want to bring our other generals in in a moment. But based on your firsthand observations, your firsthand knowledge, General Marks, did the defense secretary reject recommendations from military commanders for more troops?
BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Sure. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's been documented if you read General Franks' book, and the current book, "Cobra II," indicates very, very clearly, and in fact, that is in fact what happened. We requested the 1st Cavalry Division. That was denied. At a very critical point in the war, I might say.
Posted by: Steve J. | May 9, 2008 3:02 AM