Iraq War: pinning the blame

For an Administration that insists that things are going wonderfully in Iraq, there certainly does seem to be a scramble to pin the blame for the failure of a policy that, according to the official line, is succeeding marvelously. I guess it's kind of a postmodern thing.

The current issue of Newsweek carries a piece called "The Unbuilding of Iraq" that is one of the manifestations of this finger-pointing. Two quotes stand out for me in particular. One talks about how the Pentagon (Rummy with some direction from Dick Cheney) was vetoing a number of State Department choices for postwar occpuation officials:

The vetting process "got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion," recalled one of [Jay] Garner's team.

The next one pretty much speaks for itself:

There was considerable confusion over who was supposed to be in charge of post-Saddam Iraq. "What do we mean by 'regime change' anyway?" General Franks queried Secretary Rumsfeld in the middle of the war.

Yeah, we've got problems in Iraq.

Tags: iraq war