WASHINGTON -
When he appeared before the US Senate Armed Services
Committee, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he
would resign only if he could no longer serve his
country well.
"And needless to say, if I felt I
could not be effective, I'd resign in a minute,"
Rumsfeld said. "I would not resign simply because people
try to make a political issue out of it."
The
day before, President George W Bush had given Rumsfeld a
strong vote of confidence. "Secretary Rumsfeld is a
really good secretary of defense," Bush said. "Secretary
Rumsfeld has served our nation well. Secretary Rumsfeld
has been the secretary during two wars, and he is an
important part of my cabinet, and he'll stay in my
cabinet."
Other members of the Bush
administration have since echoed that support for
Rumsfeld, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who
through a spokesman told The New York Times: "Don
Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United
States has ever had. People ought to let him do his
job."
Rumsfeld acknowledges that he bears the
ultimate responsibility for the abuse of prisoners in
Iraq, but says he has been meeting that responsibility
in part by ordering an investigation as soon as he
learned of the problem.
But several members of
the opposition Democratic Party have called for Rumsfeld
to resign or be fired. And one, Congressman Charles
Rangel (Democrat, New York), says if Rumsfeld won't
quit, and Bush won't fire him, then Congress should
impeach him.
Calls for Rumsfeld's ouster have
been fueled by continuing press reports detailing the
prison abuse scandal. Seymour Hersh, a correspondent for
The New Yorker magazine, was one of the first
journalists to break the story. Hersh spoke to reporters
in Washington on the publication of his latest article,
which features a new photo of an Iraqi detainee cowering
under threat from two US military dogs. Hersh said the
abuse was widespread and that ultimate responsibility
lay with those at the top of the Bush administration.
"We have to change the dynamics of the war, of
how we're looking at this. It's not a question of six or
seven kids doing something wrong," Hersh said. "The
photograph I published today was from a completely
different unit [than the earlier photos]. Are we going
to get 60, 70, 600, 700 [photos of abuse/torture]? What
you have to do is look at the policies, look at the
people, the generals in charge, the people on top, and
that's what the story I wrote is about - it's about the
people [in charge]. We have to start taking this up the
chain of command immediately."
Many Rumsfeld
supporters say the call for his ouster is merely an
unfair way for opponents of the Bush administration to
express their anger over the Iraq war. One such
supporter is Jack Spencer, a military analyst with the
Heritage Foundation, a conservative, private
policy-research center in Washington.
In an
interview with RFE/RL, Spencer said Rumsfeld has been an
outstanding defense secretary who has worked hard to
streamline the US military's approach to combat. Spencer
argued that Rumsfeld was quick to contend with the
prisoner-abuse scandal - more than three months before
it became an issue in Washington: "Secretary Rumsfeld
has done an outstanding job, including [initiating] an
investigation in mid-January when he first heard of
these accusations," Spencer said.
Much criticism
has focused on the fact that Rumsfeld failed to inform
either Bush or Congress about the developing scandal in
a timely fashion. Bush himself was reported to have
privately chastised the defense secretary for not
telling him earlier about the situation.
But
Spencer said Rumsfeld publicly announced the probe at
the time it was launched, and that no one took much
notice of it until pictures of the abuse were broadcast
nearly two weeks ago. According to Spencer, to lay blame
on Rumsfeld for the abuse is typical in a political city
like Washington.
"This seemingly hysterical call
for his resignation very well could be politically
motivated," Spencer said. "Certainly I'm not against
good debate, so continued rhetoric like that I don't
think amounts to a hill of beans at the end of the day."
But Peter Kuznick, a professor of history at
American University in Washington who specializes in
military affairs, said that while Rumsfeld may not have
been directly involved in the prisoner abuse, his
overall conduct as defense secretary earns him much of
the blame.
Kuznick said that like Bush, Rumsfeld
has made a point of characterizing the US side as the
embodiment of good, and US opponents as the embodiment
of evil. Further, he said, it was Rumsfeld's decision to
occupy Iraq with a far smaller force than many military
experts said would be necessary. Many critics cite this
step as the chief cause behind the current security
problems in Iraq.
"The question of [Rumsfeld's]
resignation is the broader one about his overall
stewardship, his overall behavior as secretary of
defense," Kuznick said. "There is a lengthy indictment
of Rumsfeld that can be made in terms of his influence
on many of the most disastrous decisions that have been
made [in the Iraq war]."
Kuznick said
responsibility for these problems goes higher than
Rumsfeld. He said one might blame Condoleezza Rice,
Bush's national security adviser, for not properly
coordinating the work of the departments of state and
defense, as she is supposed to do.
It has been
widely reported that the White House gave many
post-Saddam Hussein duties in Iraq to Rumsfeld's defense
department - duties that historically are handled by the
state department. For example, many critics say US
administrators would not be having the current problems
with Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims if Secretary of State Colin
Powell were in charge of more of the occupation work.
Kuznick acknowledged that such coordination
between the state and defense departments should be
handled by Rice. But Rice, he said, is only as powerful
as her boss allows her to be, and that is where the
ultimate problem lies.
"I think the signals are
sent by the president," Kuznick said. "Some of the
recent revelations that have come out emphasize the
split between Rumsfeld on the one hand, backed by Bush,
against Powell. Condoleezza Rice appears to be a fairly
weak figure. Yes, she bears some responsibility for not
adjudicating [coordinating] this differently, but I
think the ultimate responsibility is the president's."
Kuznick said Rumsfeld's departure would be a
help, but not enough to salvage US foreign policy. He
said that with the release of the photographs of
prisoner abuse in Iraq, Arabs Muslims now have no doubt
that the war in Iraq is not about democracy and
improving the lives of Iraqis. They are convinced that
it is about US interests, he said, and US interests
alone.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio
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