Rumsfeld's Memory and Logic is Cheneyish

Rumsfeld's Memory and Logic is Cheneyish

Perhaps former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld might want to do some more research as he writes his memoirs about his service in the Bush administration.

Rumsfeld on Wednesday issued a rare statement disputing President Barack Obama's assertion in his West Point speech on Tuesday evening that the Bush administration rejected commanders' requests for additional troops for Afghanistan.

Calling Obama's claim a "bald misstatement," Rumsfeld indignantly declared: "I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006."

Actually, U.S. commanders asked for an additional 2,000 Marines to help protect voters in Afghanistan's 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections. Rumsfeld approved the request, temporarily boosting the size of the U.S. force there at that time to about 15,000 troops.

A report issued last weekend by majority Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that Rumsfeld refused U.S. commanders' requests in December 2001 for U.S. troops to deploy on the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border to prevent Osama bin Laden and his closest followers from escaping into Pakistan.

Instead, Rumsfeld and his top commander for the region, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, chose to rely on U.S. air power, ragtag Afghan militias and Pakistan's ill-equipped paramilitary Frontier Corps.

If conservatives really cared about the U.S. military then why did they let Don the Dummy play games with our troops and let Bin Laden get away.