Maureen Dowd: The Decider Sticks with the Derider

Also offered to us by Rozius comes the April 19th Maureen Dowd column installment on Mr. Bush, the "decider" in chief:

At first Rummy was reluctant to talk about the agonizing generals' belated objections to the irrational and bullying decisions that led to carnage in Iraq.

The rebellious retired brass complain that the defense chief was contemptuous of advice from his military officers and sabotaged the Iraq mission with willful misjudgments before and after the invasion."I kind of would prefer to let a little time walk over it," Rummy told reporters at a Pentagon briefing yesterday.

But seconds later, he let loose a river of ruminations, a Shakespearean, or maybe Nixonian, soliloquy that showed such a breathtaking lack of comprehension that it was touching, in a perverse way.He flailed and floundered through anecdotes from his first and second stints at the Pentagon, arguing that he drew criticism because he was a change agent, trying to transform the lumbering military bureaucracy.

...

Cloistered in a macho monastery with "The Decider" (as W. calls himself), Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, Rummy didn't want to hear dissent, or worries about Iraq, the tribes, the sects, the likelihood of insurgency or civil war, the need for more troops and armor to quell postwar eruptions.

"He didn't worry about the culture in Iraq," said Bernard Trainor, the retired Marine general who is my former colleague and the co-author of "Cobra II." "He just wanted to show them the front end of an M-1 tank. He could have been in Antarctica fighting penguins. He didn't care, as long as he could send the message that you don't mess with Hopalong Cassidy. He wanted to do to Saddam in the Middle East what he did to Shinseki in the Pentagon, make him an example, say, 'I'm in charge, don't mess with me.' "