MidEast Report

GOODNIGHT, SWEET DONALD?
Thomas Friedman is, in his own way, on fire today.

This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all.

That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — today, not tomorrow or next month, today. What happened in Abu Ghraib prison was, at best, a fundamental breakdown in the chain of command under Mr. Rumsfeld's authority, or, at worst, part of a deliberate policy somewhere in the military-intelligence command of sexually humiliating prisoners to soften them up for interrogation, a policy that ran amok.

Either way, the secretary of defense is ultimately responsible, and if we are going to rebuild our credibility as instruments of humanitarian values, the rule of law and democratization, in Iraq or elsewhere, Mr. Bush must hold his own defense secretary accountable. Words matter, but deeds matter more. If the Pentagon leadership ran any U.S. company with the kind of abysmal planning in this war, it would have been fired by shareholders months ago.

No kidding. I'd go even farther than Friedman and suggest that the only way to reestablish American credibility is to change the American regime. I doubt that there's really anything that Bush can say or do at this point which can repair the damage he and his administration have done to America's reputation. I wonder, though, if Bush has any sense whatsoever of the disaster which he has created? I'm not so sure that they include such things in the Cliff's Notes News of the World Briefings which are prepared for him every day and delivered with his Froot Loops. Jeez, he even claims to have learned of the Abu Ghraib atrocities from the news media, just like the rest of us schlubs. So either his subordinates kept the facts from him, foolishly hoping they could keep a lid on the situation, or it's just Standard Operating Procedure at Bush's White House not to bother the CEO with such trivial things as systematic major violations of the Geneva Conventions.

At this point it's hard to predict how high the blame for Abu Ghraib will go, but given that no one yet has even lost their job over 9-11, I'm guessing not so high. On the other hand, Joe Biden has also suggested that Donald Rumsfeld resign, so it's a possibility that we may finally be rid of that priapic mook. Fingers crossed.

posted by Matt Duss @ 7:58 AM