Michael Jackson bitch-slaps Donald Rumsfeld

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Slightly misleading title I know, but still accurate - former head of UK armed forces, General Sir Mike Jackson, has openly attacked Rumsfeld for fucking up Iraq so badly, and for criticising the UK armed forces in Basra.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2160384,00.html

British army chief attacks US as 'intellectually bankrupt' over Iraq


Peter Richards
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian

The former head of the British Army has attacked US postwar policy, calling it "intellectually bankrupt".

General Sir Mike Jackson, who headed the army during the war in Iraq, described as "nonsensical" the claim by the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that US forces "don't do nation-building". He has also hit back at suggestions that British forces had failed in Basra.

Mr Rumsfeld was "one of the most responsible for the current situation in Iraq," Gen Jackson says in his autobiography, Soldier. He describes Washington's approach to fighting global terrorism as "inadequate" for relying on military power over diplomacy and nation-building.

Last week General Jack Keane, a US commander just returned from Iraq, said the security situation in southern Iraq was "deteriorating" and there was "general disengagement" by the British military in Basra. But Gen Jackson told the Daily Telegraph, which is serialising his book: "I don't think that's a fair assessment.

"What has happened in the south, as in the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied their training and development was appropriate.

"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy."

He is also critical of the decision to hand control of planning the administration of Iraq to the Pentagon, and said disbanding the Iraqi army and security forces had been "very short-sighted".

The Pentagon said divergent views were a "hallmark of open, democratic societies".

If divergent views are a hallmark of open, democratic societies, why are the neocons so desperate to silence them?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The Pentagon said divergent views were a "hallmark of open, democratic societies".

Just employ a small mechanical doll on the front desk to perpetually say "We removed Saddam", and then stop talking to anyone. Saves money.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I think it's slightly unfair to blame it all on the US military. Then you're just saying that they are so powerful and amazing that they somehow could have had a vastly different effect on post invasion Iraq and that's just not true. The hallmark of the pre- and post-invasion was gross overestimation of what the occupation forces could achieve and a gross under estimation of what needed to be achieved.  The sad recent history of Iraq is one of it fucking it self up and that fucking up being enabled by outside powers, either the US/UK on one side and Iran/Syria on the other.

[Hank_Kingsley]

True dat.

[Gulftastic]

I was at a wedding last week with a Police Inspector called Micheal Jackson. He offered no opinion on the US led invasion of Iraq.

His wife is almost unbelievably called Janet.