Throwing the BS flag
The first flag, appropriately enough, goes to former Rumsfeld spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, who unfortunately re-surfaces in today’s Washington Post with a piece that purports to set the facts straight about Gen Eric Shinseki’s comments to Congress before the invasion of Iraq that questioned the size of the force being deployed. Shinseki especially worried that ...
The first flag, appropriately enough, goes to former Rumsfeld spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, who unfortunately re-surfaces in today's Washington Post with a piece that purports to set the facts straight about Gen Eric Shinseki's comments to Congress before the invasion of Iraq that questioned the size of the force being deployed. Shinseki especially worried that there wouldn't be enough troops for an occupation.
The first flag, appropriately enough, goes to former Rumsfeld spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, who unfortunately re-surfaces in today’s Washington Post with a piece that purports to set the facts straight about Gen Eric Shinseki’s comments to Congress before the invasion of Iraq that questioned the size of the force being deployed. Shinseki especially worried that there wouldn’t be enough troops for an occupation.
The essence of Di Rita’s argument is that too much has been made of Shinseki’s questioning of the war plan. Shinseki’s congressional testimony, Di Rita says, grew out of an "impromptu exchange." Di Rita’s account of the facts is spotty at best and dead wrong at worst. First, there was nothing off-the-cuff about Shinseki’s comments. The Army chief of staff had prepared carefully, asking historians on his staff to review the ratio of peacekeepers to populations in Bosnia and postwar Germany and Japan. Senior Pentagon officials slapped down Shinseki publicly. "Outlandish," snapped Paul Wolfowitz. "Wildly off the mark." His reasoning, he said, was that, "I am reasonably certain they] will greet us as liberators." (This was the same day that he assured Congress that Iraq’s oil revenue would pay for the country’s reconstruction.)
Second, it wasn’t an one-off statement. A month later, when Shinseki was testifying again, he stood by his estimate of the likely difficulty of the postwar occupation.
There is no reason for the Post to have allowed this to be published as it is. The facts are publicly available.
One good thing about the piece: It reminds me of what a disaster Rumsfeld and Di Rita were at the Pentagon.
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