[Peace-discuss] Argument for impeachment

[C. G. Estabrook]

[We want to do all we can to promote AWAREness of the war situation with 
the fall referenda as a hook.  Here's Greg Palast arguing, correctly I 
think, that we shouldn't be put off by changes or concessions by the 
USG.  They're still capable of a lot -- including attacking Iran. --CGE]

	Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship
	Why Rumsfeld Should Not Resign
	The Guardian - Comment
	Friday, April 14, 2006
	By Greg Palast

Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, 
safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them 
have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation.

Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and 
they still don't get it.

I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled 
boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy in the rump, in 
public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot 
straight.

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN 
and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, 
General Powell?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning 
from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleezza?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and 
Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney?

Yes, Rumsfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous 
chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he 
didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense.

Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read 
in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our 
president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy.

Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken 
notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President 
meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the 
President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold 
elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of 
the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me 
of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil."

Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page 
plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State 
Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. 
the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and 
oil-supporting industries."  The General knew of the plans and he 
intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned 
what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan 
elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government 
-- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms 
-- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed 
"liberation" turned into a hated "occupation."

But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the 
death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab.

On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General 
Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was 
Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, 
Jack, you're fired."

Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in 
Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger 
Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and 
postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some 
tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, 
just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired.

Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for 
Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it.

For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. 
They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the 
puppet instead of the puppeteers.

There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from 
Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or 
spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of 
approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in 
command.

Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough 
troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by 
the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was 
that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops 
would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.)

President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the 
intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And 
Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until 
he's taken all their ammo."

When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation 
today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished."

Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's 
the President, stupid.


**********
Read more about the untold story of General Garner and the secret war 
plans in ARMED MADHOUSE, by Greg Palast, to be released June 6 (US) and 
July 6 (UK). View Palast's interview with Garner for BBC Television at 
www.GregPalast.com
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