The Rittenhouse Review

A Philadelphia Journal of Politics, Finance, Ethics, and Culture


Monday, March 21, 2005  

BLAME TURKEY!
Our Whiney Defense Secretary Spouts Off

The New York Times reports, in what must be one of the paper of record’s longest-ever headlines, “Rumsfeld Faults Turkey for Barring Use of Its Land in `03 to Open Northern Front in Iraq,” by Thom Shanker (March 21):

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday used the second anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq to answer the most tenacious criticism of the war effort -- that the Pentagon did not commit sufficient troops to the major offensive or to stability efforts after Baghdad fell.

The fault, Mr. Rumsfeld contended in two appearances on television talk shows, rested with Turkey, a NATO ally, which would not give permission for the Fourth Infantry Division to cross its territory and open a northern front at the start of the war in March 2003.

“Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly, if we had been able to get the Fourth Infantry Division in from the north through Turkey, more of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein Baathist regime would have been captured or killed,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

This is sad. So very, very sad.

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