And the hits keep coming for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. We should have known something was coming after Bush gave his "Heck of a Job, Rummy" backing. Harriet and Brownie took the deep fall after the best supporting act of President Bush. And now it is Rummy’s turn.

Rumsfeld has done more damage to our nation’s security in terms of military readiness, strategic direction, challenging military expertise (take your pick of stories on civil-military relations crumbling in the US as a result of Rumsfeld and Bush), and challenging the State department for public & state diplomacy (and here) than any adversary could hope to do on their own.

Now comes a report from Salon.com News saying Rumsfeld was aware of torture. This is probably why he and General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conflicted over what US soldiers should do should they see an act of torture. When asked (see post here),
Pace said American soldiers had "an obligation to try to stop it."
Rumsfeld immediately corrected him, "But I don’t think you mean they
have an obligation to physcially stop it; it’s to report it." (Remember the retired generals who support anti-torture legislation.)

What Salon report?

Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002
interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence
circles as "the 20th hijacker." He also communicated weekly with the
man in charge of the interrogation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the
controversial commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center….

In a sworn statement to the inspector general, [Lt. Gen. Randall M.] Schmidt described
Rumsfeld as "personally involved" in the interrogation and said that
the defense secretary was "talking weekly" with Miller. Schmidt said he
concluded that Rumsfeld did not specifically prescribe the more
"creative" interrogation methods used on Kahtani. But he added that the
open-ended policies Rumsfeld approved, and that the apparent lack of
supervision of day-to-day interrogations permitted the abusive conduct
to take place. "Where is the throttle on this stuff?" asked Schmidt, an
Air Force fighter pilot, who said in his interview under oath with the
inspector general that he had concerns about the length and repetition
of the harsh interrogation methods. "There were no limits."…

On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld approved 16 harsher interrogation strategies
for use against Kahtani, including the use of forced nudity, stress
positions and the removal of religious items. In public statements,
however, Rumsfeld has maintained that none of the policies at
Guantánamo led to "inhumane" treatment of detainees. Jeffrey Gordon, a
Pentagon spokesman, told Salon Thursday that Kahtani was an al-Qaida
terrorist who provided a "treasure trove" of still-classified
information during his interrogation. "Al-Kahtani’s interrogation was
guided by a very detailed plan, conducted by trained professionals in a
controlled environment, and with active supervision and oversight,"
Gordon said in an e-mail statement. "Nothing was done randomly."

From the Guardian:

And, responding to the generals, Mr Rumsfeld said in an al-Arabiya TV
interview yesterday: "If every time two or three people disagreed we
changed the secretary of defence, it would be like a merry-go-round."
However, in the wake of the inspector general’s report, Human Rights
Watch said: "The question at this point is not whether secretary
Rumsfeld should resign, it’s whether he should be indicted. General
Schmidt’s sworn statement suggests Rumsfeld may have been perfectly
aware of the abuses inflicted on Mr al-Qahtani."

The Pentagon also issued a statement in response to publication of the
report. A spokeswoman said: "We’ve gone over this countless times, and
yet some still choose to print fiction versus fact. Twelve reviews, to
include one done by an independent panel, all confirm the department of
defence did not have a policy that encouraged or condoned abuse. To
suggest otherwise is simply false."

And the wheels keep turning on Secretary Rumsfeld. There will be more to this and other stories before Rumsfeld reseigns. Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation of whether he should be indicted. I’m not sure that will go anywhere, but it will make for great news.

What we can’t forget, but the public is too often prone to (as is our leadership in Washington), but people overseas watch the news and follow these things. They even have their own reporters covering and actually investigating these stories. In this case, however, American reporters will surely be digging deep as they find people within the government and the military that will talk, mostly off the record or as unnamed sources. The point is, this will be fodder.

Ironically, the image of the US, while devasted by the actions of Rumsfeld, may actually be helped as the world sees how open our system is and how the government can get challenged. Just as the US Presidential debates should have been broadcast worldwide and Arabic translations paid for by the government, this can show what the US is really about. There just may be a bright spot in this afterall. It’s just like hitting your head on a wall. It feels really good when you stop.