And always spinning, spinning, spinning toward freedom. Possibly Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt intend the following, from this morning's article on the Rumsfeld situation ("Bush Sorry for Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners, but Backs Rumsfeld"), as some sort of reductio ad absurdum of the anonymous-Republican-insider gag:

At the White House, where Mr. Rumsfeld has exasperated senior staff members for what they perceive as his disdain for them, advisers said that Mr. Bush's dressing-down of Mr. Rumsfeld on Wednesday was not merely public relations. The president was uniformly described as furious at his defense secretary, even as his motive for authorizing his staff to leak the scolding to reporters was intensely debated.

Some Republicans close to the White House said that Mr. Bush had made public his slap of Mr. Rumsfeld to satisfy the critics, at least for now, but in a way that would allow him to preserve his option of firing Mr. Rumsfeld if more damaging information becomes public.

Another outside adviser speculated that Mr. Bush had reprimanded Mr. Rumsfeld because he felt that as a manager he had to address the failure of such an important subordinate, and that he well knew that his action would set off a feeding frenzy for Mr. Rumsfeld in Washington. "If that happens to put Rumsfeld in jeopardy, so be it," the adviser said.

Others said that Mr. Bush would never fire Mr. Rumsfeld, the prosecutor of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just six months before the election. Vice President Dick Cheney, one of Mr. Rumsfeld's oldest and closest friends, was described by an administration official as fully supportive of Mr. Rumsfeld—a view, Republicans said, that would hold much sway with Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney has not said anything publicly about Mr. Rumsfeld, but the vice president was believed to have been in the Oval Office when Mr. Bush admonished Mr. Rumsfeld.

Jeebus, Liz, ease up—I surrender!

Is it churlish to point out that the alleged "dressing-down" that Bush delivered to Rumsfeld, treated by Bumiller and Schmitt as an immutable part of the public record, is known to us only from the self-interested reports of these (apparently numberless) anonymous insiders? But possibly it's unnecessary: even the writers allude to there being a "motive" behind what they describe—audaciously, for someone as obsessed with access as Bumiller—as a Bush-authorized leak, though they fail to report exactly which possible motives are being "intensely debated" (or, for that matter, by whom—passive voice, Liz!). Besides, the whole passage has a weird self-cancelling quality that might have been much admired by some of the literary theorists I studied with at Yale. To each his own spin points, and let every contradiction flower! If it turns out that Lizzy Boo is a disciple of Jacques Derrida, I may have to revise my understanding of her whole canon.

posted by michael  5:55:28 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Added to the Abu Ghraib dossier. A couple of items, again pressing toward the question of policy—who made it, and when (if not yet why):

Some U.S. officials said Rumsfeld was resistant to repeated warnings from Iraq governor L. Paul Bremer—delivered as early as last fall—that the United States was detaining too many Iraqis for too long and in poor conditions. Bremer told Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials that if the problem persisted, the political fallout in Iraq would be serious, the officials said. ...

According to ... interviews, Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall—both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as "kicking and screaming" about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained. A State Department official described "extreme frustration" that months of pressure produced no real change.

Bradley Graham and David Von Drehle, Washington Post, "Bush Apologizes for Abuse of Prisoners"

Thanks to Josh Marshall for the link. (Josh's post takes another piece of the WaPo article a bit too far: Graham and Von Drehle note that Geoffrey Miller "led a team to Iraq [last summer] to examine interrogation practices," which doesn't quite justify Josh saying that Miller's report was "ordered because of reports of problems with the detention of prisoners in the country." On the other hand, Josh concludes his post echoing mine from yesterday: "I still have some question whether Miller was sent out there—remember he went in August and September—because the insurgency was heating up at the time and it was felt that ... well, more needed to be done." I'd add that the issue for Miller's consulting gig in Iraq is less what may have occasioned it, officially, than what Miller's being chosen to go tips us about the real intent behind the mission.)

And Joe Conason has this, which adds a new (and noxious) name to the mix:

Long before official reports and journalistic exposés revealed the horrific abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, high-ranking American officers expressed their deep concern that the civilian officials at the Pentagon were undermining the military's traditional detention and interrogation procedures, according to a prominent New York attorney.

Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler who now chairs the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, says he was approached last spring by "senior officers" in the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's legal division, who "expressed apprehension over how their political appointee bosses were handling the torture issue." ...

Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These are the stewards of democracy that Dear Leader has granted us: Conason notes that Feith's "scorn for international human rights law" is revealed in "his assessment of Protocol One, the 1977 Geneva accord protecting civilians, as 'law in the service of terrorism.'"

posted by michael  3:50:11 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Dumpf the Rumf. (Thanx to MaxSpeak for the phrase.) The Kerry campaign has a petition online calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. Go sign it.


posted by michael  2:04:27 PM  
tell me about it []