Iraq I: A Watershed Moment in the War

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?
An estimated 100,000 people march peacefully in Baghdad
in support of Hezbollah and against the U.S. and Israel

In a watershed moment, two senior U.S. military commanders acknowledge that Iraq is on the verge of all-out civil war.

Army General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Marine Corps General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flanked Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

Said Abizaid:

I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.

Pace said he also could envision the present situation devolving into a civil war, but both men said that they remained hopeful.

Nevertheless, the tone of the hearing was somber and Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican, noted that support for the war even among the president's own party is finite:

I think we have to examine very carefully what Congress authorized the president to do in the context of a situation if we’re faced with all-out civil war and whether we have to come back to the Congress to get further indication of support.

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and West Point graduate who served in the Army for 12 years, told Rumsfeld that he had stretched the Army beyond its capacity, a situation he called “a stunning indictment of your leadership.”

The ever smug Rumsfeld responded that the situation was more complicated than Reed had suggested.

The defense secretary had resisted appearing before the committee, but with as many as 100 Iraqis dying each day, he relented.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was sharply critical of Rumsfeld for not deplying enough troops, the initial disbanding of the Iraqi army and a lack of planning for the post-invasion occupation to maintain stability after Saddam Hussein was overthrown:

Under your leadership, there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After the hearing, Clinton called for Rumsfeld's resignation, saying that

The secretary has lost credibility with the Congress and with the people. It's time for him to step down.

Responding to Clinton and the other senators, Rumsfeld suffered another bout of his recurring memory loss and claimed that he had never painted an optimistic picture about the war.

That contradicted his many rosy statements over the years, including this whopper in February 2003, less than a month before the invasion:

It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

The three-year-old war has cost nearly 2,600 U.S. lives and more than a quarter-trillion in taxpayer dollars.

IS RUMMY FINALLY GOING TO GO?

I will leave it to others to decide whether Rumsfeld is literally out of his mind or just behaves that way. The "he's living in a parallel universe" statements certainly seem credible in light of his Alice in Wonderland testimony.

Rumsfeld quacked very much like a lame duck defense secretary.

Could it be that President Bush is waiting until Joe Lieberman crashes and burns in Tuesday's Connecticut primary before his defense secretary announces that he wants to spend more time with his family and the president's favorite Democrat is summoned to the Pentagon?

IT WAS INEVITABLE

In an eerie and violent convergence of the two wars now being fought in the Middle East, U.S. troops opened fire Thursday on a vehicle carrying armed Shiites to an anti-Israel demonstration in Baghdad (see photo), killing two occupants and wounding others.

The American military command said in a statement that the occupants of the van had first fired at the watchtower of an American military base near the town of Mahmudiyah. American troops returned fire and Iraqi troops at a checkpoint later stopped the van and found two dead men in the back with AK-47 and PKC assault rifles.

The vehicles’ occupants were followers of the militant Shiite cleric Moktada Al-Sadr, who has called for a mass demonstration on Friday against Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon.

MEDALS OF DISHONOR

President Bush has shown no shame in giving medals to the people least deserving of them.

The latest is Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, who will retire with a promotion and the Distinguished Service Medal, the military's highest noncombat medal, despite his service as the Guantánamo Bay commandant who helped organize interrogation centers in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib that came under attack for their use of torture.

As outrageous as this is, it's tough to beat the medals presented to George Tenet, who ran the CIA even further into the ground and helped the White House hype false intelligence on Iraq, and Paul Bremer, whose gross mismanagement of the post-invasion occupation led to the chaos that grips much of the country today.