The buck stops with Bush, not Rumsfeld - By Rahm Emanuel

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Rahm on Rumsfeld & Bush
Posted by jesselee
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
By Rahm Emanuel
The buck stops with Bush, not Rumsfeld

Truman sacked MacArthur. Clinton fired Aspin. It's up to the White House and Congress to make heads roll over mistakes in Iraq.
By Rahm Emanuel

May 29, 2006
...............

The United States has been in Iraq for more than three years. Nearly 2,500 Americans have lost their lives, with nearly 18,000 wounded. The chaos and violence is not subsiding, and what was supposed to be a quick victory has turned into the greatest foreign policy challenge in a generation. There is no doubt that things could and should have been done differently.

When it was clear that Iraq was spiraling out of control, the president should have changed commanders. In December 2004, Army Spc. Thomas Wilson asked Rumsfeld, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" It was a good question, one that no Republican in Congress had asked. The Defense secretary answered: "You go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." He should have been fired on the spot for such arrogance and ignorance. Yet the president stood by him, and Congress stood by the president.


To date, Congress has held no hearings on the conduct of the war, and Wilson's question remains unanswered. Three years of worsening news have eroded the public's faith in the war. Filling the void created by a lack of leadership and accountability, retired generals began to speak their minds. They had to speak up because no one was listening to the soldiers, because Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities and because the president has never once questioned the strategy or the performance of his team.

The secretary of Defense has a lot to answer for, but the American people did not elect Donald Rumsfeld. They elected the president and the Congress. The president must be held accountable for deciding to stick with failed leadership — at a tremendous cost to our nation. And this Congress must be held accountable for letting him get away with it. After three years, nearly 2,500 lives and half a trillion dollars, it's clear we went to war with the leadership we had, not the one we needed.

more at:
http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/004800.html

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