by James Glaser
December 16, 2004

Donald Rumsfeld wanted to attack Iraq with a lightening fast group of Soldiers and Marines. Lots of fire power backed up with the greatest air force the world has ever seen. High tech all the way!

It worked we crushed Saddam's pitiful army, just like we planned to, but then things fell apart. We only had the planning up to the defeat stage and then we had nothing. We were hoping for the flowers strewn in front of our troops like Dick Cheney envisioned, but things didn't work out that way. They could have, but they didn't and we didn't have a plan if the flowers didn't come and we still don't.

I have to say that I am kind of surprised that Donald is still around, but when I saw George Tenet get the Medal of Freedom for his work at the CIA, I thought to myself, I should have known better. Tenet was the head of the CIA during 9/11 and that was America's greatest intelligence failure. Remember even though about 3,000 Americans were killed in that attack, not one person even lost their job because of it. Tenet was also the guy in charge of that "slam dunk" about Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. So after Tenet's medal, to see Rumsfeld still at the Pentagon should be no surprise.

In Iraq, after we took over, we let the country fall into chaos with weeks of looting and general lawlessness. While the criminals were looting everything not tied down and while our troops stood by and watched, today's insurgents were looting every arms dump in the country. We could have stopped them with the remaining Iraqi troops and the National Police, but that wasn't part of Rumsfeld's plan and he disbanded both groups and they joined in the looting.

Since that time we have done almost everything we could to make sure the resistance to our occupation grew. First George Bush taunted the resistance and any foreign nut case by telling them to "bring it on" and they have. Then under Rumsfeld's command we had the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal that proved to every Iraqi sitting on the fence, that America treated them just like Saddam did.

While Donald sat there watching this war spin out of his control, he had to start a "Backdoor Draft" by pulling out the Stop Loss law that keeps those in the Military from getting out when their time is up. Still they call it an "all volunteer" military, but they haven't asked those they are forcing to stay what they think.

We now know that the reconstruction of Iraq is a fiasco. The Iraqi people still do not have reliable electrical power, clean water, or a good sewage system. A year and a half after George Bush claimed victory, we are still dropping 500 and 2,000 pound bombs on Iraqi cities.

Last week President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld had to admit to the American people that our troops do not have the equipment needed to protect themselves and that the Iraqi resistance had capitalized on the lack of armor on our vehicles and the insurgent's roadside bombs are what is killing and maiming most of our troops. There was no plan for this type of warfare, because Rumsfeld and the Pentagon were thinking about those parades in Baghdad, where the troops would be marching through flower petals. Even after that didn't happen, no one changed the plan or started working on a new one.

So, here we are still in Iraq with no plan on how to get out and in purely Marine Corps language, "We are really in the Shitter."

Donald Rumsfeld is still in charge and he has nothing going for himself or our troops. Americans and Iraqis are getting killed and maimed each and every day and we keep losing ground.

We claim we take cities like Fallujah from the resistance, but the next week we are having more of our troops killed there. We have "had" Baghdad in our possession for a year and a half and still our troops have to pull back to the Green Zone every night and every place else in that city is a war zone for our troops. When American troops have to take a convoy from the Green Zone to the Baghdad airport, they feel like they are running a gauntlet and hundreds have been killed and wounded on that road.

With Donald Rumsfeld in charge more and more of our fine young sons and daughters are going to be killed and wounded, because of Rumsfeld's rigid ideas of how to run this war. Every time some one says we need more troops, Runsfeld and Bush pull out this old tired ploy of saying "if the Generals in the field ask for more troops, we will give them to them."

Well it is about time that we say "Screw You" to those Generals and get somebody with some guts that will stand up and say that our troops need some more help, that our troops need the armor Washington keeps promising to them, that our troops need an exit plan, and our troops need leaders who will quit lying to them and when they say they will come home on a certain date, our troops and their loved ones can take that to the bank.

Donald Rumsfeld had his chance to prove his war theory was right and he has failed. We gave him all the money anyone could ask for, we gave him the finest Army the world has ever seen, and he blew it. It is time to get new leadership in the Pentagon. Our troops deserve that.