WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he essentially was too busy to testify at a public hearing on the Iraq war, raising a new furor on Capitol Hill over the three-year-old conflict.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters Wednesday, Rumsfeld said he thought it was enough for him to attend a private briefing with the entire Senate on Thursday. Citing his crowded calendar, he declined the Senate Armed Services Committee's request to testify publicly on Thursday morning.
Come November, they won't be requests and I'd like to see him try anddecline a subpœna, the arrogant prick. A bench warrant, a ride in the back seat of a Crown Vic sittin' on his hands, and a coupla nights in the stony lonesome won't hurt him, but it'll make me feel good.
Rumsfeld also offered an explanation for why as many as two-thirds of the Army's brigades and many National Guard units are rated not ready for combat. He said the Pentagon is wrestling with standards that would best describe the condition of the units. And he noted that highly experienced units coming home from Iraq leave a lot of equipment behind, and as a result are considered not combat ready.
"The Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years ago," he said. "It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's better trained and more experienced."
I don't know whether he's senile, in denial, living in a parallel universe, scared of spending the rest of his life in jail, or E) all of the above, but he's definitely as wrong as he possibly can be. All the spin in the world can't cover up his failures.
If he actually believes any of his own bullshit, he's off his rocker. Maybe he's a sociopath for whom lying is just the normal means to an end. It's everybody else's fault for not believing him.
He needs to be removed from office NOW and held accountable for his egregious mishandling and subsequent destruction of the military, his roles in the bungled occupation of Iraq as well as in the decision to criminally invade and occupy Iraq in the first place. He's not the only culpable one by a long shot, but he's one of the big ones.
*UA = Unauthorized Absence. The Marine Corps equivalent of AWOL, for which you go to the brig.
Update:
I guess Rummy showed up anyway. Wonkette:
Defense Secretary's Senate Testimony Equal Parts Smug, Delusional
Developing.
Update II:
Here's a 9:53 video of Sen. Clinton laying out Rumsfeld's pathetic record and his responses.
Nowhere did I hear him answer her actual question, which was, "Why should we believe your assurances now?"
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