Rumsfeld’s selective memory

June 27, 2005

There were any number of entertaining moments during Donald Rumsfeld’s appearance on Meet the Press yesterday, but one stood out for me.

Tim Russert noted that Dick Cheney, just days before our invasion of Iraq began, dismissed the idea of long, costly and bloody battle with significant American casualties. Russert asked Rumsfeld if that was a misjudgment.

Rumsfeld: Well, you never know what’s going to happen. I presented the president a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started. And the fact that the oil fields could have been set aflame like they were in Kuwait, the fact that we could have had mass refugees and dislocations and it didn’t happen. The bridges could have been blown up. There could have been a fortress Baghdad where the moat around it with oil in it and people fighting to the death.

Sounds like Rumsfeld had a series of key concerns before the war. Except:

Russert: Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the president?

Rumsfeld: I don’t remember whether that was on there.

So Rumsfeld remembers a lot of the concerns raised on this 15-point list, but not the one about the bloody insurgency that’s tearing Iraq apart. Hmm.

Let’s give Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt. This list he presented to the president was drafted over two years ago, so maybe he really can’t recall some of the particulars. Here’s a thought: why not make that list publicly available? It’ll help jog Rumsfeld’s memory and answer key questions about pre-war expectations.

How about it, Rummy?

In fairness, Rumsfeld went on to say that the possibility of an insurgency was “certainly” discussed. Whether or not it really was discussed seriously is one of those known unknowns.

  • I can’t see that the insurgency was seriously considered, and we really don’t need Rummy’s list to figure it out (events speaking for themselves, after all). I think we agree from circumstantial evidence that the war was fought for short-term political advantage; a nice little war against an old enemy to gild the presidential lily, so to speak, and maybe to make a few friends rich into the bargain. Certainly, after the DSMs, no other explanation for the war makes any sense. They simply would not have done it had they anticipated that combat operations would go on for years. Moreover, they calculated that a quick victory and all would be forgiven for failing to find WMDs or even al-Qaida links.

    So, the expatriate Iraqis played on our greed and told us we would be greeted with flowers (and they would have no reason to lie, right?). Hubris probably compounded the laziness, too–after all, if Saddam can’t stand up to us, what can a few disorganized raghead rabble with AKs do against our M1s and Apaches?

    American might well have forgiven Bush for the transparent lack of justification for war had things worked out as he anticipated. Except for failing to consider one small variable…

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