I think they’re losing it..:-(
Posted : October 28, 2004 at 11:52 am [America/Los_Angeles]
Click to play the movie
Rudy Giuliani had this to say today about the missing explosives:
The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn’t they search carefully enough?
And this is what Gen. Wes Clark had to say about it:
For President Bush to send Rudolph Giuliani out on television to say that the ‘actual responsibility’ for the failure to secure explosives lies with the troops is insulting and cowardly.
The President approved the mission and the priorities. Civilian leaders tell military leaders what to do. The military follows those orders and gets the job done. This was a failure of civilian leadership, first in not telling the troops to secure explosives and other dangerous materials, and second for not providing sufficient troops and sufficient equipment for troops to do the job.
And as Andrew Sullivan points out,
This televised evidence lends credence to the notion that al Qa Qaa was indeed looted after the
occupation, and not before. But there’s a question: why does the Pentagon not know for sure? Why is their investigation ongoing? The missing armaments have been known to the Pentagon for well over a year. The very fact that they still don’t know what happened - or even when the site was looted - by itself proves negligence with respect to this issue. And it’s worth reiterating that this is no indictment whatsoever of the troops. They were doing what they were told. The only people scapegoating the troops are, yes, the Republicans. Et tu, Rudy?
- Anand
Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004