http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-rumsfeld8dec08,1,631564.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials December 8, 2004
EDITORIAL 'You're (Not) Fired!'
Los Angeles Times Headlines What does it take to get fired these days? Donald Rumsfeld's continued tenure at the Pentagon, basketball fan-attacker Ron Artest's too-slight punishment and the idiocy emerging in the trial over the breakup of Disney's two Michaels all raise that question. Start with Rumsfeld. It's almost laughable in light of President Bush's ambitious Cabinet overhaul that Rumsfeld is among the few getting a second tour of duty. Rumsfeld should have resigned months ago, when he pledged to take full responsibility - a meaningless gesture, apparently - for the Abu Ghraib prison scandals. We've since learned that prisoner abuses encouraged by the administration's disdain for international law were more widespread, reaching from Guantanamo to Afghanistan. What's more, the Defense secretary has shown a disastrous lack of judgment in the conduct of Iraqi operations. Rumsfeld once mocked Iraqi insurgents as "dead-enders," but a year and a half after entering Baghdad, the U.S. military cannot even secure the road between the city center and its airport. Just this week, Rumsfeld regretted not having been forewarned about the strength of the resistance, but he himself played a role in ushering out the Army's top general, Eric Shinseki, for his warning before the invasion that the U.S. would need at least 200,000 troops to occupy Iraq.
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