Rumsfeld is doing a good job, says Bush

> Terrorism & Security
posted January 10, 2004, updated 12:30 p.m.

US considers 'Salvador option' in Iraq

Plan modeled on Reagan-era support for Central American 'death-squads.'

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com


Determined to find a way to contain the growing insurgency in Iraq, Newsweek reported Sunday that the US and Iraq are considering using a tactic that was used in Central America during the Reagan administration - "government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called 'death squads' directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers." Newsweek also reported that the squads would be composed of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen that would "target" Sunni insurgent leaders and their sympatizers. The move comes at a time when the BBC reports that the insurgency has developed into "near open warfare." Military experts believe that instead of containing the insurgents in Fallujah, the recent battle there spread them out across Iraq.
The Pentagon refused to comment on the Newsweek report, but according to The Times of London, one military insider said, "What everyone agrees is that we can't just go on as we are. We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing."

The Times also points out that John Negroponte, current US Ambassador to Iraq, was also Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85. The US used Honduras in the 80s as a base to train Nicaraguan contras to fight against the then-Sandinista-led Nicaraguan government.

The Daily Telegraph reports that this plan, known as the 'Salvador option,' would aim not only to kill insurgents leaders, but to show their sympathizers that there is a price to be paid for their support.
One military source said: "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
The Telegram also reports that the US "may sanction" raids by Iraqi special forces, led and trained by the US, into Syria. Late last month, Bill Kristol, editor of the widely read conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, wrote that Syria is a "hostile regime."
By Bush Doctrine standards, Syria is a hostile regime. It is permitting and encouraging activities that are killing not just our Iraqi friends but also, and quite directly, American troops. So we have a real Syria problem.
In the article cited above, Newsweek reported that the fact that the 'Salvador option' was being discussed at all "is a measure of how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is." Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College London, writes in the The Washington Post that all this comes as Rumsfeld is increasingly "being held to account" for the decisions he has already made during his tenure. Just as Vietnam was considered former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's war, Mr. Freedman says, Iraq has "become Rumsfeld's War."
Now he is ... facing a formidable indictment: rejecting a top general's advice on the force levels that would be needed to restore order to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime had been toppled; dismissing State Department advice and plans on postwar reconstruction; failing to realize the seriousness of the early looting and chaos; supporting the disbanding of the Iraqi army without regard to the likely consequences of turning loose thousands of armed and angry unemployed soldiers; and inviting a public relations disaster by circumventing the laws of war to facilitate the indefinite holding and periodic torturing of prisoners.
Frederick W. Kagan, writing in The Weekly Standard, says that while conservatives have defended Mr. Rumsfeld because they believe that many of the attacks on him were really attacks on President Bush, it is still possible to support the president and not be happy with the job done by Rumsfeld.
Claims that there are no serious problems with military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, or with the equipment our soldiers have, or with the number of troops available, are childish and damaging to efforts to identify and solve real problems.
The Washington Times reports that Rumsfeld's "feud" with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, the head of the Armed Forces Committee, has hindered Rumsfeld's ability to enact his agenda on Capitol Hill. In December, Sen. McCain said he had "no confidence" in the secretary of defense.
Why is Rumsfeld still secretary of defense? The planning, if one can call it that has been a total failure. And still the president has the audacity to say he is doing a good job. Well I suppose it a case of birds of a feather.