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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...