Joe Galloway speaks out!

[Gimpy]

Joe Galloway: It's Time For Rumsfeld To Go

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

May 6, 2004

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, and co-author of the best seller, "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young", he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department.

Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine.

His overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union. During the course of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations.

In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

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WASHINGTON - All that the Bush administration had in Iraq, in the absence of any grand strategy, was a grip on the moral high ground: Whatever else, we were way better than Saddam Hussein, who tortured and murdered the unfortunates who ended up in Abu Ghraib Prison.

We had the moral high ground until a week ago when news of the prisoner scandal came out.

The photos are disgusting. Iraqi prisoners hog-tied and heaped one upon the other. An American soldier sitting on top of a prisoner. Prisoners naked and abused. Prisoners, an Army investigation reported, who had broom handles and chemical light sticks shoved up them.

Six Army Reserve military police ? part-time soldiers in a full-time war ? face court martial on charges that could send them to Leavenworth military prison for years. Six officers and sergeants who should have had a better grip on the situation in Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad have been given administrative punishment of a severity that will effectively end their military careers.

All that is well and good and as it should be. But the buck in this case should not stop at the lieutenant or captain level. There were people wearing silver stars on their shoulders who bore responsibility both for the prisoners and for the MPs guarding them. And above the generals there is Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who until events forced him to couldn't even be bothered to read the Army investigative report, written in February, which detailed the fresh horrors in a place of horror, Abu Ghraib.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on national television shows Sunday that he hadn't read the report, either.

We are Americans. We are better than this. This is not about training and education and instruction on the finer points of the Geneva Conventions on the proper treatment of prisoners of war, although those things are important. This is about right and wrong. First graders know that. Any policeman who can't figure that out needs some time on the other side of the bars.

It tars us all, just as Lt. Rusty Calley and Capt. Ernest Medina and their band of My Lai murderers tarred the reputations of everyone who served in Vietnam, and all Americans.

This takes us down in the eyes of the Middle East and the rest of the world. It is one more disaster in a string of disasters that began with the idea that we would topple Saddam Hussein and the grateful Iraqi people would welcome us with showers of rose petals.

Heads ought to roll over Iraq in general and Abu Ghraib in particular, but George Bush seems to have an aversion to firing people even when they desperately need it. He didn't fire anyone after Sept. 11 when too many of our watchdogs were asleep at the switch. He didn't fire anyone at the Central Intelligence Agency for getting some very important information wrong in the lead-up to invading Iraq.

At times it seems that the only thing that can get you fired in Washington is telling the truth. President Bush needs to get out a long broom and do some housecleaning. There's still time for him to go into the election looking tough and decisive and on top of the situation. No better way to send that signal than some creative firings.

A couple of weeks ago we suggested the dismissal for cause of L. Paul Bremer, head of the civilian reconstruction effort in Iraq, along with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Peter Pace. This week we raise our sights and suggest that it is past time for Rumsfeld himself to depart.

He insisted on total personal control of everything to do with planning and carrying out the Iraq invasion and reconstruction. Now that things have become difficult, not to say bloody, the secretary of defense and his crew are bobbing and weaving and dodging and praying for June 30 when they can hand off responsibility to Secretary of State Colin Powell, the man they froze out of virtually every decision made, especially the bad ones.

As he leaves, Rumsfeld can take with him everyone in his office, especially including Under Secretary of Defense Douglas A. Feith, director of the Office of Special Plans. Myers should go, too.

We preach accountability to our children, so why should we not demand accountability from those whose decisions and obsessions have sent our soldiers and Marines into harm's way? Get it right or get out. Now there's a slogan a retread corporate czar like Rumsfeld should be able to identify with.

? 2004 Joe Galloway. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's .

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Well............................not ALL of those opinions are "just" the "authors'"!

[Advisor]

I think Joe's on to something here. Rumm's has got to depart...he's old, tired and a control freak.

[Hardball]

When the enemy sees you gazing into your own navel,...

He will put a shot through both the back of your head and into your gut, simultaneously.


My quote...

Hardball

[SuperScout]

[Before there is a run on the rope stores to complete the lynching of Donald Rumsfeld and others, you may want to pause and red the following article by Victor D. Hanson.]

American Cannibalism: We are doing to ourselves what the enemy could not.

By Victor Davis Hanson
Have we any memory of a man in a suit and tie, nearly three years ago wading through the din and panic amid the morning rubble, assuring millions of stunned Americans that the national headquarters of their armed forces was still intact and capable of defending us after the mass murder of 3,000? And have we no shame in recognizing that should some congressional critics and Washington harpies get their way, Americans will accomplish what bin Laden's suicide bombers could not on September 11: remove America's finest Secretary of Defense in a half century?
The idea that anyone would suggest that Donald Rumsfeld ? and now Richard Meyers! ? should step down, in the midst of a global war, for the excesses and criminality of a handful of miscreant guards and their lax immediate superiors in the cauldron of Iraq is absurd and depressing all at once.

What would we think now if George Marshall had been forced out on news that 3,000 miles away George S. Patton's men had shot some Italian prisoners, or Gen. Hodges's soldiers summarily executed German commandoes out of uniform, or drivers of the Red Ball express had raped French women? Should Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell have been relieved from his command for the February 12-13, 1991, nocturnal bombing of the Al Firdos compound in Baghdad, in which hundreds of women and children of Baathist loyalists were tragically incinerated and pictures of their corpses broadcast around the world, prompting the United States to cease all further pre-planned and approved attacks on the elite in Saddam's bunkers throughout Baghdad? Of course not.

THE PAST THREE YEARS
Rumsfeld and Meyers have presided over two amazingly successful wars. In an aggregate of 11 weeks, and at the tragic cost of 700 combat dead, the American military defeated the two worst regimes in the Middle East and stayed on to implant democratic change where no such idea has ever existed. Had anyone envisioned, say in 1999, that the United States could do such a thing ? that Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar would both be out of power, and that governing councils would be there in their place ? he would have been dismissed as unhinged. What they are attempting to do is not to keep some psychopath "in his box" or lob over cruise missiles. The latter are palliative but ultimately solely punitive measures that kill a few hundred or thousand anonymous Middle Easterners and keep the nasty business off the evening news, thus in the long term inciting rather than solving the problem.
No, the transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq has always been the most audacious, the most dangerous, and, yes, the most idealistic American effort since the end of World War II ? one that alone had the chance of ending the quarter-century-long terrorist assault against the United States. And these necessary measures were not "cooked up in Texas," but rather inexplicable apart from the murder of 3,000 Americans.

We scream now about the lack of planning for the occupation, forgetting entirely that Iraq is not quite like any other post-bellum situation in history. We also forget that it was liberated almost fifteen months after Afghanistan, which is logically further along in its path to reconstruction. Winners usually loot the infrastructure of the losing side. They are rarely confronted with the sudden specter of the defeated carting away their own national treasure at the first sign of magnanimity, while global television both damns the Americans for allowing it to happen and warns them not to "shoot civilians" to prevent it. Most of Europe was happy enough with a "secular" Saddam Hussein, an embargoed and desperate thug who could only pay for his imported junk by mortgaging his oil fields to French and Russian consortia. Even the U.N. "humanists" made money off of him at the expense of his hungry citizenry.

Yet the much-deferred-to "Iraqi people" were not quite enemies or friends. They were victims of Saddam's mass murder, of course, but also once upon a time in Kuwait they were happy to loot, rape, and kill themselves. Someone besides Saddam Hussein, after all, killed a million of their own. They wanted liberation from on high, but not necessarily by the U.S., the infidel supporter of Israel and a devastatingly lethal enemy that had wrought havoc on their conscript armies in 1991 and 1999. Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas in Baghdad, al Qaedists in Kurdistan, and over a decade of contacts between Saddam Hussein's and bin Laden's intelligence operatives were not to count as evidence of Saddam's "support for terrorism." By the same token, we are not to say anything of some 5-6 million Kurds who have a democratic republic and are quite happy with their salvation through American intervention and support.

Have we forgotten that millions in the neighborhood ? from the Palestinians to the Gulf sheikdoms ? were delighted about news of September 11? Or that the region's twenty-something autocracies were terrified of us in Iraq, fearing that, should we succeed, they risked losing their own illegitimate regimes? Winning "hearts and minds" did not entail preserving preexisting good will, much less losing what was not there, but rather wading into a swamp of tribal hatred, gender apartheid, endemic anti-Semitism, and Soviet-era brutality whose only decades-long constant was blaming the United States for self-induced miseries.
Yes, there are thousands of prisoners in the jails of Iraq ? but not hundreds of thousands in recent graves. And that is precisely because the warcraft of Rumsfeld and Meyers was rightly targeted, measured, and humane ? and even in war did not seek massive annihilation of the enemy (although, in the brutal arithmetic of war, that ensures a better chance of successful occupation later on). We do not know how many of the abused, tortured, and humiliated prisoners in the war's aftermath either belonged to the cohort of 100,000 felons let loose by Saddam on the eve of the war or were part of the Hussein death machine or themselves were recent killers who had assassinated and blown apart Americans. We only know that thousands were arrested, not executed, and the vast majority treated decently by the vast majority of Americans.
The amazing thing remains not that we have seen a depressing year of chaos, but that the forces of change are still in our favor after all of our setbacks and often mistaken assumptions. In Iraq, regardless of what The New Yorker or the New York Times attests, the stuff of life ? electricity, water, food ? is far more accessible than before. We see nightly bombings and chaos, but even CNN cannot hide in its background shots stores open, people speaking freely on the street, and the economy taking off.
Most Iraqis will grasp that the Baathist prisoners, a few of whom used to torture and kill them, nevertheless will have their treatment scrutinized as never before under confinement ? and that Americans found culpable in not ensuring decency will be court-martialed or relieved as they should be and in a way not done in the Middle East. And that message, now lost, will prove all the more powerful six months from now. We might not have much confidence in the Iraqi government to come, but there will be an Iraqi government in less than two months. That fact alone will be of enormous importance, as the shrill threats of al Qaeda attest; they are not so sure of success in waging a war against kindred Arabs crafting the world's first democracy.
So in this election-year carping, we worry only about what we are doing, never the enemy, whose problems are legion and growing. Indeed, there are two constants in this war: Every time the United States engages the enemy it wins, and every time Iraqis are given a chance at a secure, peaceful local election they act responsibly and eschew candidates of violence and hate. Unless those facts change, America will win the peace. If we will fight more aggressively in the shadows while the new government basks in the light of success, the miracle of Iraq will come to pass ? and it simply would not have without the likes of a Donald Rumsfeld.
THE RUMSFELD RECORD
Have we forgotten the world before September 11? It was not all certain that going to Afghanistan was preordained, much less the rapid fall of the Taliban ? reread the use of "quagmire" and its kindred language of doom after the first few weeks of war by experts on the New York Times opinion pages. Those on the left said victory was impossible; those on the right said we were losing due to far too few troops. We ridicule Guantanamo before the cameras; but so far the facts are that al Qaeda detainees there wished to bring us more September 11s and so far there have been no more ? and all with careful treatment of very inhumane killers.
Yet Rumsfeld's Special Forces and air power really did win the war, and Afghanistan is now more secure with far fewer troops than is Iraq. A new policy toward North Korea; a mature sobriety about the post-Cold War European hypocrisy of wanting continued protection without even the simulacra of responsible partnership; a new honesty with South Korea ? all this is due largely to Donald Rumsfeld. Add the Libyan turn-around, Dr. Khan's confessions, troops out of Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian worry about new scrutiny ? all dividends from his acceptance of the world as it is rather than what we used to dream it to be. The Democratic leadership asking for his scalp should spell out exactly how the U.N. representative in Iraq is not de facto U.N. participation, how the paltry NATO contingent in Afghanistan is proof that Europe will help if asked to join a truly multilateral coalition, and what exactly they would have done differently in the war that the vast majority of them voted for and funded.
The irony of the prison scandal is that the military blew its whistle on its own. When the senators woke up (having ignored a public press conference announcing the transgressions months ago), an exhaustive Pentagon dossier had already been prepared for their perusal. It is a report, an investigation, a prosecutorial brief if you will, but not yet a definitive conclusion based on trial testimony and transcripts of the convictions of the guilty.
We will soon learn ? but as yet are not sure ? whether these reprehensible photographs captured ongoing brutality in medias res and were thus mere artifacts of the systematic and greater horror at hand, or were in fact the chief reason to be of the grotesque acts ? posed, late-night, and secretive friezes of staged humiliation by a few to serve as photographic warnings to bluff and coerce information from other prisoners. Either way, it was terribly, terribly wrong, but such important details and other disturbing questions ? Which military officers knew? Why were so many women involved? What was the exact role of non-military interrogators? ? are simply as yet unknown. Sometimes pictures are not worth a 1,000 words.
Very liberal people in Washington are calling for heads to roll in lieu of court proceedings and cross-examinations. Much of the angst that sent senators to the capitol steps microphones derives from their own surprise and the sensationalism of the pictures ? images that put these media-savvy legislators first to shame, then to the recognition that this is an election year in which bottled piety is at a premium. They know that there is little to be gained from reminding Americans that there are now thousands of brave soldiers fighting horrific enemies in a professional and highly successful manner. The last one to damn the fewest receives the least air time. In this context, the behavior of Senator Kennedy the last few months is the real metaphor of our times.

A FINAL WARNING
One final jarring scene from the televised spectacles was the image of the lone, beleaguered Joe Lieberman calling for patience and sobriety, and worried about our troops in the field and the pulse of the war. This decent and honest man reminds us of what the present party of Ted Kennedy and Terry McAuliff used to be. The confidence of a Truman, JFK, and Scoop Jackson ? caricatured now for dropping the bomb, a fiery "pay-any-price" speech, and heating up the Cold War ? is now nowhere to be found. This is a vital point, because either this year or sometime in the next decade a Democratic administration may well take the reins of power and in matters of national security it will be far to the left of the Liebermans of the world. And the disturbing events that we saw in the 1990s ? constant appeasement of Middle East terrorists and their national sponsors, the emergence of a nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, sudden withdrawal from messy places like Mogadishu, a jetting special envoy Jimmy Carter ? will return, though made worse through the prism of the present fury over Iraq.

If it were not so tragic it would be ironic to see what the present prescient critics are going to say ? much less do ? when they confront the hideous reality that Iran and perhaps Syria will have acquired nuclear weapons and with them the ability, without a neighboring nuclear India staring them down, to blackmail most of the Middle East and the oil-hungry world at large.
We will soon learn what Middle Eastern nuclear honor, atomic loss of face, or radioactive jihad really means. Most who now damn unilateralism and preemption won't find their beloved but shaken U.N., EU, or NATO at their side. More likely there will come a day when in exasperation they will call up someone like Don Rumsfeld for advice ? albeit in silence and off the record.

[SuperScout]

Lieberman: Why Rumsfeld Must Stay

Warning that forcing the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "would delight foreign and domestic opponents of America's presence in Iraq," Connecticut Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman said only solid proof that Rumsfeld has a hand in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners would justify his removal from the president's Cabinet.

Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, the recent candidate for his party's presidential nomination drew a clear line between himself and fellow Democrats calling for Rumsfeld's ouster.

"Many argue that we can only rectify the wrongs done in the Iraqi prisons if Donald Rumsfeld resigns," he wrote.

"I disagree. Unless there is clear evidence connecting him to the wrongdoing, it is neither sensible nor fair to force the resignation of the secretary of defense, who clearly retains the confidence of the commander in chief, in the midst of a war.

"I have yet to see such evidence. Secretary Rumsfeld's removal would delight foreign and domestic opponents of America's presence in Iraq."

In his op-ed column, "Let Us Have Faith - Why Rumsfeld Must Stay," Lieberman says he is appalled by the humiliating abuse of the detainees in Iraq.

He calls for a thorough investigation of the whole scandalous matter, insisting, "We cannot allow the prison scandal in Iraq to diminish our own American sense of national honor and purpose, or further erode support for our just and necessary cause in Iraq."

America, he wrote, must stay the course.

He recalled President Lincoln's words at another difficult moment in American history in pursuit of another just cause - The Civil War and the the abolition of slavery: "'Let us have faith ... and in that faith, do our duty as we understand it.' "

One more reason why Lieberman is known as "the conscience of the Senate."

[I wonder how many Democrats are now wringing their hands in "buyer's remorse", wishing they could vote again, and this time, nominate a man with principles, decency, and a fair chance of winning. Instead, they're stuck with a lying, elitist flip-flopper.]

[frisco-kid]

if he had made the cut. As it was, as a registered Dem, I voted for Edwards. I DO NOT LIKE KERRY! Don't think much of Bush, either. With me, the jury is still out. I'll study these two right up to the end of OCT.

I think Rumsfeld is an egotistical prick. With that being said, I don't think he should step down or be impeached over this scandal. I don't believe that these things were carried out with his blessing, which should be THE ONLY REASON that he should be forced to resign or be impeached. I do think that he dropped the ball by not acting upon the information when it first became knowledge to him and, and this is a big one, not keeping Bush informed better as this unfolded. Stupidity and bad judgement, yes. Grounds for loosing his job, no. It is, however, grounds for a Presidential Ass Chewing which he got, and was acknowledged by both he and Bush.

I have alot of respect for Joe Galloway. For a civilian to be awarded a Bronze Star w/V says something about a man in my book. And, I believe he is a "soldiers reporter and a soldiers friend." Like me, Joe is entitled to his opinion; it's just not totally the same as mine on this.

[reconeil]

Truly sad finding out that even Joe Galloway has gone the typically American politically-divisive route,...even during wartime. Would have thought that after his couple day stint (plus bout with survival at LZ-Xray, Vietnam) with: "The Brave Garry Owen Boys", as he admiringly called The 7th Cavalry on a segment of: "Most Decorated" on The History Channel, he would know much better than be sucked-in to echo the sentiments of a mainly politically-divisive and politically-purposeful ABOVE ALL ELSE herd mentality,...especially during wartime.

But then, and since notoriety, fame and accompaning wealth quite often similarly scrambles many brains of The Hollywood and Beltway Crowds/cliques, and even some millionaires in The Press/Media, such is certainly understandable,...even during wartime.

Still, I'll never understand why all alluded to, and especially Old Joe, since: "He should know much better",...so often go The Leftist and/or foreign favoring/capitulating/excusing route? What good can ever come from such America Dividing and foreign favoratism,...especially during wartime? Well, for America and Americans anyway?

Sure, foreigners (even foreign enemies) get satisfied and gratified, and American Leftist might get to achieve power and control with their perpetually dividing Americans political nonsense. But,...SO WHAT? The-age-old-bottom-line which no one can deny is: "United We Stand, and Divided We Fall",...especially during wartime all you politics ABOVE ALL ELSE fools.

Neil

[Andy]

I don?t believe it is sad or surprising that Joe Galloway is taking the stand he has. It?s just Joe being Joe. No we are not personal friends, nor do we exchange Christmas cards. But I met him two years ago, ended up spending an hour or two at a bar with him. One of us mentioned Mama San Show?s Place, in Saigon and that started the discussion. There?s no doubt we were both there at the same time and probably met the same ladies. We really had something to talk about. When he said Peter Arnett was a piece of $hit, I knew we were pals.

Galloway struck me as a man who will always, in every case, side with the grunts. In Vietnam those at Tay Ninh were always getting rocket attacks from the Black Virgin Mountain. Before Tet we couldn?t fire back, or could only fire back after every thing was cleared through Division. Even then no jets were used nor were the 175mm?s or 8 inchers. The counter fire was not done in a timely manner and GI?s got killed. Galloway, like the guys in the 25th Division said, screw the sacred religious significant of the hill, bomb the hell out of it.

No doubt today he would say, screw the religious temple, if your taking fire from them, blow ?em away. Hell with political ramifications, if E-5?s and below are getting nailed, kill who?s doing it. Galloway is a modern day Ernie Pyle.

A lot of our people have died in the valiant effort to make Iraq safe for democracy. We all hope it turns out well, we?re in a better situation than Vietnam. But as long as a spec 4?s are getting their heads blown off and we don?t retaliate by leveling the city block from where the rocket came, I believe Galloway will be angry, just as many of us are.

I?m a registered Republican but I don?t think Bush?s team did the best job of thinking this all the way through. Maybe we didn?t need an extra 80,000 troops to take out Sadam, however if there were that many troops on the ground from the get-go, a lot of this organized resistance may have been avoided. Perhaps the ?out of towner?s? could have been prevented from getting into the cities and raising hell.
Then again, I could be wrong.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[Gimpy]

mah deah "Yankee" frand Andy has said!

He speaks with mucho wisdom and clarity!

All X-cepts bout thet being a registered "Republican" anywho!

I is a "registered" democrat and I can find many, many things in his words that we agree on.

THANKS ANDY!

[reconeil]

Even though everything you say might be absolutely true and quite accurate, I just don't believe that ANY American Notables should so openly help America shoot itself in the foot during wartime.

It really shouldn't matter that Galloway by chance fought courageously for survival with: "The A-Troop" (B, C & Hq Troops of The 7th Cavalry also) and/or my alma mater at LZ-Xray, Vietnam,...or that even The Great Ernie Pyle might not have acquited himself so bravely. Or, and for that matter that Joe Galloway is even A Great Guy.

What should matter are words publicly stated like: "We had the moral high ground until a week ago when news of the prisoner scandel came out". That's utter nonsense,...and to which I'm reasonably sure that many fanatical terrorists worldwide must be rolling over with laughter about, since and like all fanatics (political or religious - here or in Iraq), normally believe "Themselves" morally superior FROM DAY ONE, WHEREVER & WHENEVER.

Hell and besides Andy, even terrorists know full-well that Americans have already tallied-up larger body and injury counts at American Fraternity Initiations over the years,...than will ever be tallied-up in Iraq. Well, by America anyway.

Say what you will about terrorists. But, the absolute truths about terrorists are that "They" quite differently are UNITED and quite differently don't set ABSURD PRIORITIES for "Themselves" during wartime. Would that WE were less political and thus greatly divided, and just as wise, sensible and UNITED instead? Ironic,...isn't it?

Neil