More Congressmen Call For Rumsfeld's Resignation

Hello Zoso:

The fact is that Don Rumsfield has been walking on egg shells since
before the 9-11 event, and it was the Republicans who were out to pull
the rug out from under him. The man is a bit self-absorbed. Please
take time to read the article I have attached below:

__________________________________________________ ______________________________

Why congressional Republicans are taking Rumsfeld to task

Mary Lynn F. Jones

In mid-2001, Washington's chattering classes were abuzz with talk
about which of George W. Bush's cabinet secretaries would be the first
to resign. Most of the attention focused on one person: Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld wasn't a popular figure around town. Democrats, of course,
had never liked him. And the career military people at the Pentagon
made clear from the start of the Bush administration that they
disagreed with his plans for military transformation. Such animosities
weren't really unexpected. More surprising, though, was Rumsfeld's
rapidly deteriorating relationship with congressional Republicans,
whose ranks he had once belonged to. According to a piece John
Bresnahan wrote for Roll Call in October 2001, Sen. Pat Roberts
(R-Kan.) yelled, "I am discouraged, I am frustrated and I am angry,"
at Rumsfeld during a hearing. Things got bad enough that Rumsfeld,
according to the piece, sought advice from former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich on how to cajole Congress.

Then came September 11, which overnight transformed Rumsfeld into a
hero of sorts and, more than likely, saved his job. It also seemed to
change his relationship with Republicans on the Hill. Sen. Thad
Cochran (R-Miss.) probably spoke for many of his colleagues when, in
October 2001, he told Bresnahan that Rumsfeld was "the ideal person to
balance . . . the intellectual challenges of an extremely difficult
job."

But in recent weeks, Rumsfeld's relationship with Hill Republicans has
apparently soured to pre-9-11 levels. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who
heads the Senate Committee on Armed Services, recently sent Rumsfeld a
letter expressing his concern about inflammatory remarks made by Lt.
Gen. William Boykin regarding Muslims. (Playing hardball and showing
his typical diplomatic finesse, Rumsfeld dismissed the letter, saying
it hadn't made it to his desk.)

Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, voiced regret that Congress had given the
president -- and, by implication, the administration -- too much
freedom in dealing with Iraq. "We probably have given this president
more flexibility, more latitude, more range, unquestioned, than any
president since Franklin Roosevelt -- probably too much," Hagel said.
"The Congress, in my opinion, really abrogated its responsibility."
And, in the wake of the leak of a memo in which the Pentagon chief
warned of a "long, hard slog ahead" in Iraq, Sen. John McCain
(R-Ariz.) claimed that Rumsfeld and his deputies had not been candid
with Congress about the situation on the ground. "The leaked memo, I
think, puts things in a better perspective than the briefings that
we've had from them," he said, according to an account by Douglas Jehl
and David Firestone in The New York Times.

Democrats have been raising these questions for months. But why the
change now in GOP attitudes on the Hill toward both the war and the
Pentagon's civilian leadership?

One reason is that legislators are tired of being treated as a lesser
branch of government by the administration. As one GOP staffer told
Jehl and Firestone, "The Pentagon is not exactly Capitol Hill's
favorite department anymore. Rumsfeld and [Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul] Wolfowitz just give off this sense that they know better than
thou, and that they don't have to answer our questions."

For the last two years, many members of Congress have been willing to
give the administration the benefit of the doubt, especially regarding
the war on terrorism. Administration officials tended not to share
information -- and when lawmakers demonstrated, on a few occasions,
that they couldn't be trusted to keep a secret, the administration's
reluctance to candidly brief senators and representatives only
hardened.

But the more times Bush comes to the Hill to ask for money -- and the
closer we get to an election in which many incumbents will face tough
questions from constituents about how long our soldiers must stay
abroad -- the more nervous lawmakers are getting. Hill Republicans can
hope that most voters view the Iraq War as the responsibility of the
president, not Congress. But they also know that voters could punish
them if they are seen as being in the administration's pocket --
especially if the death toll continues to rise.

A second reason for percolating anti-Rumsfeld sentiment on the Hill is
that many lawmakers feel genuinely misled. While they recognize that
the war against terrorism could last decades, they envisioned that the
war against Iraq would be over quickly and cost few U.S. lives. In
short, they expected a repeat of the Gulf War.

Plus, the administration scared members into believing that Saddam
Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. They were
thereby led to believe that supporting the war was their only option,
and that it would carry little political risk.

But now much of the administration's evidence has been debunked. On
Friday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed it is
working on a report that says much of the prewar intelligence on Iraq
was "sloppy," according to committee Chairman Roberts.

While Rumsfeld didn't lead the Iraq intelligence-gathering efforts, he
certainly used the "findings" to make the case for war. According to
Dana Priest of The Washington Post, Roberts has assured Sen. Jay
Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that he'll ask the Pentagon about its
intelligence on Iraq.

So the administration is starting to test the collective patience of
GOP lawmakers. If Rumsfeld keeps up the hard-line approach that's been
a hallmark of his tenure, Republicans may be more willing to seek his
political demise. And this time -- unlike in the summer of 2001 -- he
may not get a second chance.

Mary Lynn F. Jones is online editor of The Hill.

This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for
compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the
author.

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"Zoso" wrote in message news:...
> Rangel is a major idiot!
>
> Thanks to the democrats electing the biggest morons in
> America, we have a whole party of numb-skulls who are
> about as sharp as basket balls.
>
> If he is worried about embarrassment, where was he when Bill Clinton
> fired the whole cook staff at the White House because the head
> chef caught him masturbating into the kitchen sink?
>
>
> "C_S" wrote in message
> news:483c6f5c.0311051938.3ccbf1f6@posting.google.c om...
> > .
> > "It's time that [Rumsfeld] does the American people a service
> > by resigning.
> >
> > He has no plan.
> >
> > He has lacked the sensitivity to everything I believe in,
> > especially the loss of life."
> >
> > --Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY
> >
> > Rangel calls for Rumsfeld to resign, calls him "an embarrassment"
> >
> > By DEVLIN BARRETT
> > Associated Press Writer
> > November 5, 2003, 3:39 PM EST
> >
> http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...eld1105nov05,0,
> 7602418.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
> >
> > WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel, a caustic critic of
> > the military effort in Iraq, labeled Secretary of Defense
> > Donald Rumsfeld "an embarrassment" on Wednesday and called
> > for his resignation.
> >
> > "It's time that he does the American people a service by
> > resigning," Rangel said, arguing that Rumsfeld has shown
> > he has no strategy for securing postwar Iraq.
> >
> > "He has no plan," said Rangel, D-N.Y., a Korean War veteran.
> >
> > "When you have a problem as we do in Iraq," Rangel said,
> > "you want somebody that does better than acknowledging
> > there's a problem.
> >
> > Heck, anybody can do that.
> >
> > I can get a kid from Lenox Avenue to tell you how screwed up
> > things are.
> >
> > We need somebody to say yes, it's bad, these are our
> > alternatives, this is what we're going to do."
> >
> > Rangel accused Rumsfeld of alienating world leaders and members
> > of Congress, while failing to safely rebuild Iraq.
> >
> > "He has to be an embarrassment to the president," Rangel said.
> >
> > "He has lacked the sensitivity to everything I believe in,
> > especially the loss of life."
> >
> > Two other Democratic congressmen have also urged for Rumsfeld to
> > be replaced.
> >
> > Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wis., the ranking Democrat on the House
> > Appropriations Committee, and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a
> > Vietnam veteran on the same committee, have also pressed
> > for a change in leadership at the Pentagon.
> >
> > __________________________________________________ ______________
> >
> > Resign ? That's not enough.
> >
> > More like a war crimes trial along with the rest of the BUSH TRASH.
> >
> > C_S
> >
> > ================================================== =
> >
> > " And there is no doubt in my mind,
> > not one doubt in my mind, ....that
> > we will fail. "
> >
> > --- George W. Bush, in speech to
> > Labor Dept., October 4, 2001, Washington, D.C.
> >
> > ================================================== =