Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship Why Rumsfeld Should Not Resign

By Greg Palast

Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle
of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald
Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the
Secretary of Defense’s resignation.

Well, according to my watch, they’re about four years
too late — and they still don’t get it.

I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink
that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready
to kick Rummy in the rump, in public. But to me, it
just shows me that these boys still can’t shoot
straight.

It wasn’t Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in
front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as
biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell?

It wasn’t Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our
next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was
it Condoleezza?

It wasn’t Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared
that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr.
Cheney?

Yes, Rumsfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious
arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied
bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon — but he didn’t
appoint himself Secretary of Defense.

Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense
you didn’t read in the New York Times, related to me by
General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in
Baghdad as the US’ first post-invasion viceroy.

Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working
under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called
for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis
could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the
President’s true mission, General Garner called for
Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the
U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a
desert base. "It’s their country," the General told me
of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their
oil."

Let’s not forget: it’s all about the oil. I showed
Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq’s economy drafted
secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury
and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the
sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil
and oil-supporting industries." The General knew of
the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi
sun don’t shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big
Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan
elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-
ethnic government — and this was back when Sunnis,
Shias and Kurds were on talking terms — knew he could
get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed
"liberation" turned into a hated "occupation."

But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government
would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-
assets privatization grab.

On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very
night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call
from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told
Garner, in so many words, "Don’t unpack, Jack, you’re
fired."

Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-
ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul
Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates.
Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and
postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100
orders, like some tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq’s
economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as
Rumsfeld’s neo-con clique had desired.

Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six
generals’ call for Rumfeld’s ouster. Forget it.

For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can’t shoot
straight. They’re wasting all their bullets on the
decoy. They’ve gunned down the puppet instead of the
puppeteers.

There’s no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General
Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker.
Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush
Administration without Darth Cheney’s growl of
approval. And ultimately, it’s the Commander-in-Chief
who’s chiefly in command.

Even the generals’ complaint — that Rumsfeld didn’t
give them enough troops — was ultimately a decision of
the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem
was not that we lacked troops — the problem was that
we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A
million troops would not be enough — the insurgents
would just have more targets.)

President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him
today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner,
looks like the game’s up." And Cheney replies, "Hey,
just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he’s
taken all their ammo."

When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld’s
resignation today, I can just hear George saying to
Dick, "Mission Accomplished."

Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about
choosing a target: It’s the President, stupid.

http://www.gregpalast.com/