Today was a day of great spin by our own Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld. In an interview with Meet the Press, host Tim Russert fired away some
hard questions. The secretary seemed to be coming up with answers rather
quickly, but if you listen closely you can hear how his own spin was catching
him.
The first point I would like to make involves the number of trained Iraqi
forces. This issue was brought up in a Senate hearing last week and Secretary
Rumsfeld had his answer ready to go. It seems there has been mixed signals on
the number of combat ready troops and if the Pentagon has been lying to Congress
on the actual numbers. Secretary Rumsfeld tried clearing that up by stating in
the hearing that the number of security forces include police, border patrol,
anti-terrorist groups and military and is well noted in his briefings that the
total number does not reflect solely upon Iraqi troop levels. Now read this part
of what was asked on Meet the Press:
From the MSNBC Transcript of the show:
MR. RUSSERT: But if we only have three Iraqi battalions that are fully combat
ready and we need 107 for us to, in fact, have our exit strategy of bringing our
troops home, we are in for a very long haul.SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Well, we’re going to have, I think something in the
neighborhood 200,000 in October, people in security forces when the constitution
and the elections take place.
There you can see where the Secretary, either by means of creating a spin or
by accident switched the question from a number of troops to a number of
security forces. This is something that he says causes continue problems, yet he
is making the mistake himself.
Tim Russert clearly did not ask about security forces as the Secretary
defined to congress. He asked about military battalions. This means army, both
mechanized and non-mechanized. Now Donald Rumsfeld has switched the question to
reflect upon the total security forces once again, which would imply that
police, border patrol and other securities are included in what we would call an
Iraqi Army.
Another point that is worth noting has to do with the recent comments of Dick
Cheney regarding the insurgents being in their “last throesâ€ÂÂ. Rumsfeld supported
this comment by using semantics. He even said “The last throes could be
violence, as you well know from a dictionary standpointâ€ÂÂ. This comment has
caused a lot of questioning of the level of communication between our Pentagon
and White House. Reporters and citizens all over this country has taken the
vice-President’s comments as meaning that there could be an end in site, however
Donald Rumsfeld is not agreeing on the general consensus of what people are
believing.
The Secretary was right to some extent as Webster’s defines throes as “a hard
or painful struggleâ€ÂÂ. This is not the point. The point is what the
vice-President said by describing the situation as their “last throesâ€ÂÂ. This
would leave a sense of closure to their fight.
The problem with this may seem trivial and truly be an argument of semantics,
however in the 21st century, an age of high-tech communications, the
vice-President has repeated this comment on a couple of occasions now. In a time
when polls and support are slipping away for our administration, would it not of
been appropriate for someone to phone or email the vice-President and suggest he
reword that comment. That would be too easy though, and as we have seen in the
past, our current administration loves to keep the people guessing.
Early on Sunday morning, the secretary was also on ABC’s This Week. There
George Stephanopoulos asked the secretary about a report in this morning’s
London Times, where they assert of a secret meeting between U.S. officials and
insurgents. The secretary responded by saying that there are numerous meetings
throughout the Pentagon and he can not keep track of them all. By the time he
got to NBC though, he said that the meetings were between Iraq and the
insurgents and we were hosting them.
It seems to me that as Secretary of Defense, if there are meetings going on
to discuss possible truces with our enemies, well YOU SHOULD KNOW! Considering
we classify these insurgents as “terroristsâ€ÂÂ, this also negates a long standing
rule of our nation, and one repeated by our President of; “The United States
will not negotiate with terroristsâ€ÂÂ.
This circus of appearances by the Secretary this morning have just shown how
broken our administration is. They are sitting in a land of make believe and not
admitting the facts to themselves, each other and the public. These mistakes are
clearly ones of a fatal nature and we need to get our military on the right
track. There were numerous other things stated by the Secretary throughout this
Sunday morning fiasco that I did not agree with, yet why should I even listen to
a man who does not know when we meet with our enemies to try and arrange peace
deals. He is so far out of touch with the reality of this war and it is getting
people killed.
I now have to stand behind Senator Kennedy with his asking of the Secretary
to resign. His mistakes and disconnect from the facts is killing our soldiers
and Iraqi citizens. Ironically this fiasco went on after yet another Iraqi group
has called for our forces to leave.
This past week the Iraqi Student Union called for our troops to withdrawal.
This comes just a few days after 82 elected Iraqi representatives made the same
call. This is how the people we liberated feel of us now; they want us out. Sure
sounds like a parade of flowers and candy to me!!