Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship
Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship
Why Rumsfeld Should Not Resign
The Guardian - Comment
Friday, April 14, 2006
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.)
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.
**********
Read more about the untold story of General Garner and the secret war plans
in ARMED MADHOUSE, by Greg Palast, to be released June 6 (US) and July 6
(UK). View Palast’s interview with Garner for BBC Television at
www.GregPalast.com