Reply #338: Joseph Galloway (Knight Ridder Press): Neo-Cons Can't Escape Responsibilit

[Jack Rabbit]

From Knight-Ridder via CommonDreams
Dated Wednesday December 29

Neo-Cons Can`t Escape Responsibility for their Iraq Miscalculations
By Joseph Galloway
Senior Military Correspondent, Knight Ridder Newspapers

The most curious turn of the worm this season is the attack by the neo-conservatives on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq.

It should be noted that until now Rumsfeld was the darling of that same bunch. He hired a batch of them as his most trusted aides and assistants in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz as his undersecretary. Douglas Feith as his chief of planning. He installed the dean of the pack, Richard Perle, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board for a time . . . .

Now, suddenly, the voice of the neo-conservative movement, William Kristol, editor of The Standard, suggests that Rumsfeld has fouled up everything in Iraq and ought to be fired for his failures. Ditto, writes Tom Donnelly of the right-thinking American Enterprise Institute.

Rumsfeld himself was never a neo-conservative. He just found them useful as he took over the Pentagon for the second time. Clearly the neo-cons found Rumsfeld useful as well as they pushed their ideas on transforming the Middle East.

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