Rumsfeld Speaks

Rumsfeld Speaks

August 3, 2006

At a press conference yesterday, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained that he declined to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the status of the Iraq war this morning because "my calendar was such that to do it...would have been difficult." Amidst a firestorm of criticism, Rumsfeld's schedule miraculously cleared up and, just a few hours later, he agreed to testify. It will be the first time Rumsfeld has testified publicly about the war before the committee since February 2006. Much has happened in Iraq since then, and most of it has not been good.  It remains to be seen when Rumsfeld and the administration will make a serious change there. 

• Since Rumsfeld last testified before Congress, things in Iraq have gotten worse. Since February 2006 – the last time Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee – approximately 300 U.S. troops have died in Iraq, 2530 U.S. troops have been wounded, and well over 10,000 Iraq civilians have been killed. Insurgents have conducted an average of 620 attacks per week. In March there were 7.8 hours of electricity per day in Baghdad (down from 16-24 hours before the war); last month there were 7.6 hours. In March Iraq produced 2.1 million barrels of crude oil per day (down from 2.5 million barrels per day before the war) ; last month it produced 2.2 million barrels per day. In February 20 06 there were 133,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, today there are 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and the Pentagon plans to raise that number to 135,000.
  
  
• Rumsfeld’s claims that the Army today is “vastly better” off is not true. Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday that "the Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years ago." It's not true. As Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) argued on Tuesday, the Army is "very much worse off" than it was in late 1999 "when the military said two of the 10 Army divisions were ranked at the lowest readiness level, C-4." According to a letter from a group of defense experts chaired by former Defense Secretary William Perry, "two-thirds of the Army's operating force, active and reserve, is now reporting in as unready, and...there is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy."

• The administration is still refusing to change the course in Iraq despite clear evidence that their plan isn’t working. The Bush administration refuses to shift course to ease the burden on U.S. forces. Last week, Rumsfeld "directed more than 2,500 U.S. troops who have spent the past year in Iraq to stay up to four months past their scheduled departure date, boosting the size of the U.S. force amid unrelenting violence in Baghdad." The Bush administration, which continues to advance plans for special military tribunals that violate the Geneva Conventions, are opposed by the military's top uniformed lawyers who testified again yesterday that the current tribunal plans endanger U.S. forces serving around the world.  Meanwhile, progressives in Congress are unifying around a plan to make progress in Iraq.