QUOTE FOR THE DAY

“The most tragic was the failure in the early days after the invasion to fulfill the ‘first duty’ of an occupying power: providing basic security. Much has been made of the looting that occurred immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, but [Noah] Feldman notes the essential point: by allowing the looting to proceed, American forces sent a clear message ‘that the United States was not in charge, and that no one else was, either.’ Iraqis had to seek security for themselves in what was for a time a state of anarchy, and it was hardly surprising that they turned to their own kind for protection. Feldman says that it was not ‘ancient’ ethnic and religious differences that empowered armed militias, but the human instinct for survival. ‘Had there been half a million U.S. troops on the ground,’ he insists, ‘it is highly likely that there would have been little looting, no comparable sense of insecurity and therefore a reduced need for denominational identities to become as dominant as they quickly did.'” – Robert Kagan, reviewing Noah Feldman’s “What We Owe Iraq,” in the New York Times book review. Kagan, one of the more cogent and persuasive neoconservatives, now calls Rumsfeld’s short-changing the Iraq war and occupation a “monumental error.” I’m a fan of Rumsfeld. But any semblance of accountability must surely mean that he not be re-appointed as secretary of defense. His monumental strategic errors in Iraq and his monumental moral error at Abu Ghraib must surely count for something. Or will they?