Amid new scandals, heat grows on Rumsfeld

Bush standing by his man
The turning point seemed to be Bush’s declaration in April that “I’m the decider and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

Military analyst Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution predicts the result will be the same this time.

Citing a series of past problems ranging from the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison to poor planning and diplomacy, O’Hanlon says, “If you were going to get rid of Rumsfeld, you would’ve done it for those reasons.”

Lawrence Korb, an assistant defense secretary under President Reagan, said Rumsfeld is one of many recent defense secretaries who have refused to hold themselves responsible for what happened on their watch.

“Nobody wants to admit they made any mistakes,” said Korb, now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.

While Rumsfeld still may have Bush in his corner, people seem to have grown disenchanted with his job performance. Folksy and confident, Rumsfeld was wildly popular in the months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the rapid victory in Afghanistan.

Fates intertwined
Four years ago, roughly two-thirds of Americans approved of his job performance; those numbers had slipped to 42 percent by this January and to just a third by April, making him about as unpopular as his boss.

The Haditha killings reinforce the rationale for Rumsfeld to resign, Korb said. But he said he was doubtful that would happen unless evidence emerges that the defense secretary knew about the killings and did not act.

Military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute says that while Rumsfeld has made plenty of mistakes, most have of them have played out “in a context where almost everyone else in the administration played a part, so it’s a little hard to single him out for special retribution.”

Rumsfeld has a particularly loyal defender in Vice President Dick Cheney, whose association with Rumsfeld dates to the 1960s. It was Rumsfeld who brought Cheney into the Ford White House in the 1970s.

“The reason why Rumsfeld isn’t in any trouble with the White House is because almost any charge you can make against him with regard to Iraq applies equally to the vice president,” Thompson said.

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