General Says Rumsfeld Killed Plans For Post War Iraq
There is no longer any doubt or mistake about it. These warmongers are criminally negligent fools who should not just be removed from office, but held legally liable for their crimes.
Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan Donald Rumsfeld told his team to start planning for war in Iraq, but not to bother planning for a long stay, a high-ranking military official said in an interview.
“The secretary of defense continued to push on us … that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”
Scheid said the planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4,” or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.
Even if the troops didn’t stay, “at least we have to plan for it,” Scheid said.
“I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,” Scheid said. “We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.
It’s also worth recalling the standards for justice and the punishments meted out in Nuremburg (Article 6 is of particular interest here, I would think). Ah yes, those were the good old days, back when America was prosecuting war criminals instead of promoting them.
on October 23rd, 2006 at 11:10 am
The reason the generals were waved off post–war planning was to ELIMINATE the risk of critical review of their performance after the war. If there was no written plan, there can be no actionable criticism of their apparent failures in the post-war outcomes. They could simply whine that “…no one could have guessed it.”
That’s either a lie or negligent homicide. Post-conflict planning is SOP for honorable armies because they bear responsibility for preventing disintegration of the liberated or conquered society. The U.S. military is among the most honorable in history and it’s no surprise that Rummy had to threaten the generals to halt planning.
For an American Army to fail formal post-conflict planning is to affirmatively construct plausible deniability to an otherwise trusting American electorate. Cheney and Rumsfeld have used their 40 year expertise in managing the organs of the Whitehouse to provide them an escape from the voters’ judgement. The judgement here is not whether they should be fired but whether they should by tried for crimes against humanity.
Forget George Bush. He gave his brain back to Jesus at the same time he gave back his heart.
But we shouldn’t be surprised that these mechanics have engineered everything in teflon. It is exectly the same modus operande used by fat cats all over the country to steal the public treasury and convert it into private fortunes. This is the other reason that the late Tip O’Neil said, “… all politics is local.” Their tactics are identical to how we all get robbed in local government by these wiseguys with ties. They all use government lawyers at taxpayer expense to find the path thru U.S. laws to our treasure. The only difference in Washington is the scope and scale of the fraud.
The scary part is that tthis pack of hieves have taken over 2900 of our children and at least 60,000 Iraqis. And for the first time in the history of our sacred country, they have made us the hated brother of the world community. Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamiltom are all crying for the first time.
So, does Racketeering (18 USC 1962) apply to government officials?