Republicans fall out of love with matinee idol who fluffed his lines once too often
The Independent
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
21 December 2004
How different it was 18 months ago. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan had been crushed. Leading al-Qa'ida operatives were being rounded up monthly and, in Iraq, a modern blitzkrieg had swept away Saddam Hussein's regime in just four weeks.
Back then in 2002 early 2003, Donald Rumsfeld could do no wrong. His wartime Pentagon news conferences were the bureaucratic equivalent of rock concerts. His elliptical, teasing answers to questions were moulded by admirers into a form of poetry. "Rumsfeld's snowflakes," the terse memos fired by the boss into every nook and cranny of the Pentagon, were hailed as the last word in cutting-edge modern management. Even President George Bush called his Defence Secretary a "matinee idol" - and, in Washington terms, there was no greater heart throb in the corridors of power than the supremely self-confident Mr Rumsfeld, peering disdainfully at the world through his fashionable rimless spectacles.
No longer. Gone (almost) are the press conferences. His other public appearances have dried to a trickle, invariably before audiences and interviewers of proven sympathy. His most recent attempt to resurrect the old Rummy swagger backfired. At a Kuwait "town hall" meeting this month with the military, intended to lift morale among troops heading for Iraq, his breezy reply to a question from a Tennessee National Guardsman about the lack of proper armour for military vehicles - "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might wish you had" - drew the ire not only of soldiers, but several senior Republican Senators. Just who, they asked, was responsible for "the army we have" if not the Secretary of Defence? Mr Rumsfeld was pilloried for his seeming lack of concern for the soldier in the field, and his tendency to blame anyone but himself.
In fact that was but his latest mis-step. Overruling his generals, he sent too few troops to Iraq to secure the occupation. Then came the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, which scarred the reputation of the US around the world. As the insurgency grew, the tours of duty for the troops have been extended and extended again, sapping morale and contributing to a potentially disastrous decline in National Guard recruitment (the National Guard and reservists now account for 40 per cent of the force in Iraq). Now comes the revelation that Mr Rumsfeld has had his letters of condolence to the families of fallen soldiers signed by an auto-pen, further proof, say critics, of his insensitivity and lack of concern for the ordinary GI.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=595110
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