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SEOUL - South Korean security authorities were ready to carry out on-board inspections of a Bahama-registered freighter after being tipped off that the ship might carry some members of Al-Qaeda, police said on Thursday. The 17,000-tonne freighter, the Athenia, which was suspected of carrying members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group, was due to arrive at the southwestern port of Kunsan late Thursday, the police said. “We have been informed that Al Qaeda members might be hiding in the ship,” a police officer in charge of foreign affairs in Kunsan Police station told AFP. “When the ship reaches the...

The guerrilla legal campaign against national security suffered a big defeat this week, and the good news deserves more attention. The victory for legal sanity came Monday when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision to toss out a suit brought by aspiring terrorist Jose Padilla against a slew of Bush Administration officials. Readers may remember that Padilla was arrested in 2002 for plotting to set off a dirty bomb on U.S. soil. He was detained as an enemy combatant, convicted in a Miami court and sentenced to 17 years in prison. But Padilla has been...

During this heated discussion Alan Colmes says, and has been saying for years, that Enhanced Interregation Techniques (EIT) yield nothing. He also states that Donald Rumsfeld confirms this. An hour later on Hannity, Rumsfeld says that just is not true.

Tsk Tsk. Sad

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is intervening with a Pentagon investigator to influence the final wording of a report that exonerates George W. Bush-era officials who gave war briefings to retired military TV and radio commentators. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, has tried for three years to convince federal investigators that the briefing program violated government rules and that some of the retired officers turned analysts received preferential treatment for Pentagon contracts. Two previous government probes found no misconduct, and the Pentagon inspector general now has wrapped up a third investigation. A source close to the third...

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, former gang member, and designated enemy combatant who was sentenced to 17 years in prison, is mounting an aggressive appeal. The oral arguments on October 26 in Richmond’s Fourth Circuit will strike at the heart of the Constitution. Padilla brought a lawsuit against former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials, alleging he was illegally detained and tortured in the military brig after his 2002 arrest. That suit, which has been described as “lawfare” or exacting personal and financial “flesh” from an opponent, was dismissed last February by a federal judge in Charleston,...

In an explosive interview with Al Jazeera’s English Washington bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blasted the journalist for “haranguing” and refused to answer his questions — accusing Foukara of having it in his “being” to be “disrespectful.” The heated exchange erupted when the topic came to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Foukara asked Rumsfeld whether he felt responsible for the deaths of “innocent Iraqis” because, according to Foukara, the Bush administration “didn’t secure the borders” of the country and sent in too few troops.

Herman Cain will add a heavyweight to his campaign staff on Monday. Taking over as campaign spokesman will be J.D. Gordon, who served as a Pentagon spokesman from 2005-2009 under Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates. Gordon is a retired Navy commander. He succeeds Ellen Carmichael, a 2009 graduate of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. So how did CNN report this story? From CNN: “Herman Cain communications director resigns.” No mention was made of J.D. Gordon, at all. Reporter Shannon Travis made it sound as if Team Cain was on the rocks: “It’s a very amicable departure,” Carmichael...

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says President Barack Obama has come to accept much of the Bush Doctrine out of necessity, despite what he campaigned on in 2008. Rumsfeld said that Obama needed to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open because of national security concerns, and it was the best solution among a host of bad options. “They ended up keeping Guantanamo open not because they like it — we didn’t like it either — but they couldn’t think of a better solution,” Rumsfeld told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday. Rumsfeld then listed a handful of other...

No one is immune to the probing hands of the TSA ... including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ... who got the pat-down at Chicago's O'Hare airport this afternoon ... and TMZ has the pics. (Photo at link) Sources at the airport tell TMZ ... Rummy was all smiles during the body sweep and was "very nice" throughout the procedure.

Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. special operations forces is a major success in our country’s war against al-Qaeda. As a result of the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program and the intelligence gained from detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a major fraction of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has been captured or killed since 2001.

There's no love lost between former colleagues Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. In a question and answer session for the New York Times Magazine, former Secretary of State Rice is breaking her silence about the criticisms former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made about her in his new book, "Known and Unknown." Rice was asked to comment on Rumsfeld's assertion that she "almost never wanted" to dissent with President George W. Bush. She replied about Rumsfeld: "He doesn't know what he's talking about." "I don't think he was ever in the room with the president and me when I would follow the...

SPIEGEL: Mister Secretary, you are famous for your "Rumsfeld rules." Do you happen to have a rule that gives advice on foreign invasions? Rumsfeld: I do. When you begin an invasion, a rule is "the mission should determine the coalition, not the other way around." You should not first assemble a coalition with many different views and then try to determine the mission. That leads to a lack of clarity as to the mission. SPIEGEL: Is that the case with the current NATO invasion in Libya? Rumsfeld: I think you can make that case. The United States did not articulate,...

See interesting video HERE... VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it seemed so unbelievable at the time, and then just two years ago, not under -- not under your watch, but under the new administration in Scotland, releasing -- one of the killers of Pan Am 103 goes home, and he's embraced by Libya, a huge hero. He's still a hero now. And it's, like, the United States just -- on that particular incident, that we've looked the other way, and you know, we've done -- we almost rewarded him. RUMSFELD: There -- I mean, old phrase that, in fact, I talk about...

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials - including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz - in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture. Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate. One private...

Rumsfeld blasts Obama's world image Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disputes the notion that President Barack Obama has made America more popular around the globe than it was under his former boss, President George W. Bush. Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" by host Candy Crowley whether the U.S. is looked at differently than under his tenure, Rumsfeld replied, “I don't think there's data that supports that.” "He has made a practice of trying to apologize for America," Rumsfeld said of Obama. "I personally am proud of America” Rumsfeld also downplayed Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. “He had not accomplished...

Dick Cheney just popped up here at CPAC to introduce his old pal and Bush administration colleague Donald Rumsfeld. Fans of Ron Paul turned what should have been a friendly moment before an audience of fellow conservatives into a screaming match and protest action that resembled what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like. Rumsfeld is being given CPAC's "Defender Of The Constitution" award, a concept that apparently rankled Paul supporters in the crowd. Many of them got up and walked out en masse at the mention of Rumsfeld, though some stayed behind in the conference...

The US war effort in Iraq would have been a "disastrous defeat" if president George W. Bush had left Donald Rumsfeld in charge of the Defence Department, John McCain says. The former Republican presidential candidate hit back yesterday over unflattering comments made by Mr Rumsfeld in his new autobiography, Known and Unknown. Reviving a feud between the pair, Mr Rumsfeld describes Senator McCain in his book as "a man with a hair-trigger temper and a propensity to fashion and shift his positions to appeal to the media".

Long-awaited, from-the-hip memoir offers raw, unvarnished look at eight decades of history "If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much." So declares former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his news book 'KNOWN AND UNKNOWN'. In the book, which streets next week, Rumsfeld details his half-century career in and around the ring -- and West Wing. It is based not only on Rumsfeld's memory but also on hundreds of previously unreleased documents from throughout his career. Now only the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal: # Rumsfeld warned in 2001 of Afghan “swamp” and “not to make a career...

If there was any doubt that Donald Rumsfeld's book would be frank-and-candid narrative of what, in his telling, really happened, here are a few details about what promises to be a tell-all in the tradition of the Washington memoir. First, see above: The dust jacket depicts a fleece-wearing Rummy at his get-away in Taos, a signal that he's detached from the Beltway and has nothing to lose. Then there is the title, "Known and Unknown," a play on his famous formulation about "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." That's shorthand for suggesting he's going to reveal more than a few...

Unlike Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been relatively quiet since he left office in 2006. But part of last night's speech got Rumsfeld hot under the collar: When I took office, we had just over 32,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan, compared to 160,000 in Iraq at the peak of the war. Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. The ever-polite Rumsfeld sent out a press release calling that statement a big fat lie:

Who is to blame for (1) our difficulties in Iraq, (2) the delayed Katrina response, (3) lousy relations between the US and Russia, and (4) Republicans losing the Senate?  Donald Rumsfeld, of course.  At least if you believe Robert Draper, as he writes in the June 2009 issue of GQ. "Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has always answered his detractors by claiming that history will one day judge him kindly. But as he waits for that day, a new group of critics -- his administration peers -- are suddenly speaking out for the first time. What they're saying? It isn't...

NEW YORK — There is now enough evidence to try former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes, Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, recently told "Frontal 21," a German television program. Nowak's statement confirms what human rights and legal organizations have been saying for several years, and spotlights one of the Bush administration's most controversial decisions regarding the use of torture. Nowak's statement follows a bipartisan Senate Arms Services Committee investigation made public in December. In scathing and unequivocal terms, the investigation revealed that Rumsfeld and other high-ranking administration officials, including former National Security Adviser Condoleezza...

On the occasion of the publication of the paperback version of his book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, Douglas J. Feith participated in a conference call this afternoon with a number of bloggers, including FinkelBlog. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush. He worked closely with the President, Vice-President and Defense Secretary Cheney in formulating US policy on Iraq and Afghanistan. Highlights from Feith’s remarks: * Even though the rhetoric of the Obama campaign was harsh toward the Bush administration on...

Reading former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s op-ed in the New York Times the other day reminded me of John Kennedy’s aphorism that success has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. In this case, Rumsfeld is attempting to claim paternity for the so-called surge and the success we’ve witnessed in Iraq during the last 22 months. The problem is that the reality is at odds with what he is now claiming. It is not that some of the specific claims Secretary Rumsfeld makes in his op-ed aren’t accurate. He is right, for example, about the progress we were...

The release of another previously classified Justice Department memo on the interrogation of terrorists (here and here) has reignited the specious “torture narrative,” propounded gleefully by Bush-administration critics. The narrative holds that the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib was the direct and even intended consequence of a set of executive-branch legal opinions on the status of terrorist detainees and the president’s wartime authority. The New York Times announced in an April 4 editorial that the latest declassified memo leaves no doubt that the “abuse of prisoners” was “calculated policy” rather than “rogue acts.” “When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became...

Cannot Post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/03/17/080317taco_talk_hertzberg

Steve Scully: This is a political question in terms of how he gets the nomination, but just from what you have seen, how much support do you think he has among the base of the Republican Party? Roberta McCain: I don’t think he has any. I don’t know what the base of the Repub–maybe I don’t know enough about it, but I’ve not seen any help whatsoever. Scully: So can he then go on and become the nominee of this party? McCain: Yes, I think holding their nose they’re going to have to take him. Scully: Can you explain? McCain:...

With all due respect, this is absurd on many levels. If John McCain is nominated and loses, it is because he doesn’t appeal to enough Americans, including the base that he has repeatedly betrayed (as Thomas Sowell puts it) over a long period of time. The suggestion that McCain and McCain alone is capable of fighting this war, given his experience, seems to be the core of the concern. Let me suggest that VDH and others who make this claim are wrong. McCain never treated Bill Cohen, Clinton’s defense secretary, with the kind of personal animus he showed Donald Rumsfeld....

Rumsfeld Remarks at Churchill Dinner PATH TO VICTORY Refashioning Institutions for the 21st Century Remarks by Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Claremont Institute's 20th Annual Dinner in Honor of Sir Winston Churchill, November 17, 2007.This past year has certainly provided ample entertainment for those interested in politics. The activities of Congress and the unexpected blessing of an extra year of presidential campaigning fill our newspapers, televisions, and blogs. The problem is that this entertainment tends to focus on the petty and the personal, and seems to avoid a serious discussion of the emerging challenges our country and the next...

Editor’s Note: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld received the 2007 Claremont Institute’s Statesmanship Award in honor of Sir Winston S. Churchill on November 17, 2007, and delivered the following remarks (as released by the secretary, exclusively to National Review Online). This past year has certainly provided ample entertainment for those interested in politics. The activities of Congress and the unexpected blessing of an extra year of presidential campaigning fill our newspapers, televisions, and blogs. The problem is that this entertainment tends to focus on the petty and the personal, and seems to avoid a serious discussion of the emerging...

President Bush has endorsed General David Petraeus's recommendation to begin withdrawing 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. Yet the drawdown would only restore troop levels to where they were before the surge began in January 2007. In the final months of 2006, debate in Washington centered on how fast a reduction from pre-surge levels could occur. The Iraq Study Group recommended that approximately half of the 130,000 troops then in Iraq be withdrawn by early 2008. In marked contrast to that and similar proposals, President Bush is now endorsing a step that would mean a return to the...

Most of the war hawks who stood with President George W. Bush on Iraq are gone or departing, leaving Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney increasingly without much company in trumpeting a steely resolve. And it is Cheney who stands out as the administration's foreign-policy heavy, as Bush combines his war rhetoric with overtures to Democrats who control Congress. Bush's top ally in Iraq, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, just paid a farewell U.S. visit. The supportive leaders of Spain and Italy are long gone. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned under pressure. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz - one of...

In the last six years, the Department has made great strides in modernizing its forces to address the threats of the 21st century. I. WAR ON TERROR Overall: A multinational coalition has liberated 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, with formation of representative governments and security forces. Liberated 31 million Afghans from Taliban control and destroyed Al-Qaeda sanctuary – conquering elements that successfully fought off the Soviet Union for over nine years – and stood up a Loya Jurga governing council eight months after operations began. Liberated 26.7 million Iraqis from a brutal dictatorship and turned over sovereignty of...

Rumsfeld bids farewell to Pentagon By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 10 minutes ago Leaving office, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld bade a sometimes emotional farewell Friday, saying the single worst day of his nearly six years there was when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq. Rumsfeld choked up briefly while recalling a woman in Alaska giving him a bracelet last August as a reminder of the sacrifices by soldiers of the Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade, who whose year-long tour in Iraq was extended by four months to help try to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad....

One day in the next two weeks there will be a departure ceremony at the Pentagon. Flags will fly, bands will play and the liberal media will calumniate. Should the president choose to add the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the other honors rendered, it's entirely possible that some newsrooms will have to bring in trauma therapists. The 527 Media will indulge themselves in one last feeding frenzy over the man they love to hate, Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld will probably walk out of the Pentagon smiling at the thought of a job well done. His tenure has been colored...

In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell their...

Crowds who paid up to $500 to hear Donald Trump speak on how to get rich instead heard "The Donald" bashing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and questioning the competence of the Bush administration. When talk of wealth turned to politics at the private class at the Learning Annex, Trump first discussed Rice. - said. "I don't care if she's lovely. I want someone who can go and make deals. She goes to countries and nothing ever happens except sound bites." Trump also talked about outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Look at this guy Rumsfeld," Trump said. "Millions of people...

I am doing a little research but want to post this and ask Freepers for opinions and help. It concerns Donald Rumsfeld. I had an argument with my brother last night concerning Rummy, who said he should have been fired three years ago. He stated he is incompetent and a micromanager and compared him to McNamara. He based his opinions on what he has read in the newspapers – ComPost and Washington Times – over the last several years. I disagreed with him, basically saying this is a new kind of war that his critics do not comprehend. My brother...

NYT's James Risen Cheers Rumsfeld's Exit as 'Best Thing to Happen' In Long Time Posted by Tim Graham on November 13, 2006 - 14:56. Speaking as an alumnus to students at Brown University over the weekend, liberal New York Times reporter James Risen -- best known for breaking open the government's terrorist-surveillance program -- hailed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as "the best thing to happen in a long time" and cheered that it's "sinking in" with President Bush that his foreign policy is "too radical." Risen also typically complained of how vital the New York Times is to American...

The outgoing defense secretary was too focused on transforming the military, and failed to plan for achieving political goals in Iraq. DONALD RUMSFELD had the chance to be one of the great American heroes of all time. He held office at a moment of enormous danger. He had many admirable qualities necessary for success. But like the tragic heroes of old, hubris and inflexibility made vices of his virtues, leading to his own fall and the collapse of his life's work. Rumsfeld was in many ways ideally suited to be secretary of Defense in the wake of 9/11. His experience...

Many Middle East press commentators view what they dub the "fall" of US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as symbolic of the perceived failure of US policy in Iraq as a whole. Several predict that his resignation will be the first of many members of the Bush administration. Commentary by Sana' al-Sa'id in Egypt's AL-USBU Yes, the Bush administration is beginning to fall... The first sign of this fall is the removal of Rumsfeld, the wolf who brought defeat to America. The fall of Rumsfeld heralds the fall of the agenda of the Bush administration in Iraq. Rumsfeld is gone...

Did Donald Rumsfeld Give Questioner ‘The Bird’ at Kansas State? Posted by Noel Sheppard on November 10, 2006 - 09:48. Was it an innocent scratching of the nose, or a classic Goose moment right out of the movie “Top Gun?” I report, you decide. In a question and answer session at Kansas State University on Thursday, outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was posed the following: “If you were going to give yourself a letter grade for your performance as Secretary of Defense, what grade would that be?” As he answered, "Oh, I'd let history worry about that," Rumsfeld used his...

After returning from Iraq in 2003, I found myself preparing to leave active-duty in 2004. For some reason, I encountered several interesting articles about Donald Rumsfeld and came to be pretty impressed with the guy. I don't mean his leadership style, or his decisions or anything like that. I mean personality-wise. He's got a great bio: elected to the House of Representatives at age 29, worked his way through Washington for nearly two decades before departing for the private sector. There he turned around two companies that were failing, and by all accounts, he did so with panache. My boss...

The result of this midterm election makes me very fearful of the future for my children and my grandchildren. To me, the overriding issue of our time is Islamic terrorism. The Democrats have shown that they haven't a clue. Why didn’t most voters agree? HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF.The average sixth-year midterm election, like this year, is much worse for the president's party, which typically loses 34 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. the Democrats picked up about 30 House seats and five to six Senate seats in a sixth-year election, with lots of seats still too close...

SALT LAKE CITY The state’s lone Congressional Democrat, Rep. Jim Matheson, is calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. “Look, I’m ready to see him go,” Matheson said Wednesday during a taped debate on KTVX with Republican challenger State Rep. LaVar Christensen. While multiple Democrats called for Rumsfeld’s resignation earlier this fall, Matheson resisted. Utah is a heavily Republican state where support for President Bush and the war in Iraq runs high. “We’ve just come off the worst month, this year, in terms of casualties,” Matheson told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday. “I think we need a...

My weblog started as an e-mail discussion group of friends about three years ago. About a year and a half ago I converted it to a blog that has a moderate-right, conservative slant on political and social issues of the day. I still e-mail my original group, which includes both liberals and conservatives, to notify them whenever I post a new article. One thing I have noticed that has become very clear: the liberals in my group have stopped making (usually opposing) comments on my posts. I still get plenty of comments from conservatives and from liberals who just happen...

The President had a very busy Saturday attending a rally and visiting the troops, he also rang St. Louis Cardinals' owner Bill DeWitt to congratulate him on his team's five-game win over the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series and also participated in a video teleconference between the White House and Baghdad, talking with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki As is there normal practice the President and the first lady attended church on Sunday. Today the President attended 2 rallies one in Georgia and one in Texas returning this evening to the White House. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld...

Products Site Content Five Years Later: Are We Any Safer? John Lehman Proceedings, September 2006 Discuss in the eForum. Timeline: Major Islamic Extremist Attacks A former secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission identifies the real enemy in the current war and assesses progress. GREG E. MATHIESON According to the author (left)-here, with fellow 9/11 commissioner, Washington attorney Richard Ben-Veniste (right)-the commission's report on the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and its recommendations for what the United States should do to prevent such attacks from happening again have been largely ignored. Are we winning the war? The...

New revelations that White House aides tried twice in the past two years to persuade President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fueled a caustic election-season debate yesterday over the president's wartime leadership and underscored divisions within his administration. The White House tried yesterday to dismiss the significance of Woodward's assertions, while Democrats eagerly seized on the book to bolster their campaign attacks five weeks before midterm elections. Coming days after the partial release of a National Intelligence Estimate concluding that the Iraq conflict has spread the "global jihadist movement," the latest disclosures kept the focus on the...