To his face:
“This war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Rumsfeld. “And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire.”
“Our troops are dying. And there really is no end in sight. And the American people, I believe, deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our fighting forces have made, and they deserve the real facts. And I regret to say that I don’t believe that you have provided either,” Kennedy added.
“Well, that is quite a statement,” Rumsfeld, flanked by top U.S. commanders, responded. “First let me say that there isn’t a person at this table who agrees with you that we’re in a quagmire and that there’s no end in sight.”
“The suggestion by you that people — me or others — are painting a rosy picture is false,” Rumsfeld.
“The fact is from the beginning of this we have recognized that this is a tough business, that it is difficult, that it is dangerous, and that it is not predictable,” Rumsfeld added.
Kennedy asked Rumsfeld: “Isn’t it time for you to resign?”
Rumsfeld noted he twice offered his resignation to President Bush last year during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, and that Bush declined to accept it. “That’s his call,” Rumsfeld added.
Leave a Reply