Cheney, now nearly 30 years later, had virtually unlimited power and dominated the pretender occupying the Oval Office. The Dick had no reason to share power with anyone, including Rummy, IMO.

I found this entire page fascinating, but tend to side with Clarke.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/…..dotes.html

my comments, to which I am surely sorry they will not be ansered as I am late however I do need to document these points for those who read this thread;

this to me is a bizarre statement, “success” in the ford administration all depends on what a person means by success

rumsfeld, with cheney, (cheney was the underling) manufactured “evidence” designed to undermine nixon’s the treaty of detant, they made believe there was information “so” top secret even the cia didn’t know about it, and rumsfeld with cheney created a false cia they called “team b”

this fake cia was a joke and they made up crap because they could not have peace.

they did it before and they did it again in Iraq, it’s what they do, to call this treason some kind of “success” is a stretch of the word

He also undermined his own plans by insisting on insulting the Joint Chiefs of Staff in surprisingly large and pathetically small ways. He refused to meet with them in “the Tank,” the meeting room where the Chiefs hold their meetings; would call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Richard Myers, away during his own meetings with the Chiefs; cut them out of the loop in his dealings with the Pentagon’s regional commanders; shut them out of the planning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and continually inserted himself in decisions over which officers to promote, which has traditionally been the responsibility of the service chiefs. If all that sounds like a lot of energy to expend on proving a point, he also would also do small things like seat the Chiefs in the back row at some meetings, just to prove a point.

the term is “little man syndrome” and if you want a perfect example then look to rumsfeld

The tragedy of all of this is that Rumsfeld’s head was in the right place when he took the helm in 2001. The Pentagon was mired in its own groupthink, with expensive and obsolete weapons systems designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer existed being pushed by a system that didn’t know any other way.

here’s an example of a man refusing to acknowledge his own ideas need to be fine tuned

a smaller more modern force is of course preferred in general however when you are occupying a country against their will you need man power or you need to get out

he refused to acknowledge this differance in his philosophy or wasn’t strong enough to admit in certain situations his philosophy would fail, and it was brutally obvious to everyone his philosophy would fail as an occupying force

as mentioned before in comments, you CANNOT “win the hearts and minds” of a land you occupy if you bomb civilian households, nor if you have policies condoning torture

and again, it becomes brutally obvious he had no intentions of any kind of success in Iraq when he refused to guard their social treasures, their museums, their mosques, their infrastructure

and to have the nerve saying “free people are free to commit crimes” or whatever depraved thing it was he said, I don’t have time to google it

in any event it is brutally obvious “success” in Iraq to him was not succes in Iraq to the Iraqi’s

more;

rumsfeld did not work for bush, he worked “with” cheney, not “for” cheney either since rumsfeld had the lead, they allowed bush to think they were working for him but they were working for themselves, rummy was proud how easy it was to manipulate the boyking.

anyway, I wish I was here while this thread was active but I am left to type and talk to myself

great thread, great read

harsh management style

It is awesome how much the needs of a manager’s ego can dismantle and demoralize an effective working team. Been there on such teams and it is crazymaking to recognize the needs of the tasks are placed second to the ego need to control of the manager and how profoundly that sabotages task momentum and team morale, causes laissez faire behavior and detachment to the point of people quitting. Also, he didn’t seem to be able to play with other teams. All those years in government. What will history say and also the people who worked with and beneath him.

He should be serving time if the people who followed his orders at Abu Ghraib are serving time. There is lying and there is breaking the law by defying Geneva Convention.

Thanks all. Very provocative salon!

If you are so inclined,this common dreams article from several years back is well worth a visit.

The Saddam in Rumsfeld’s ClosetAug 2, 2002 … —Donald Rumsfeld. Five years before Saddam Hussein’s now infamous 1988 gassing of the Kurds, a key meeting took place in Baghdad that would …
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm – Cached – Similar