For the past few months, former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been reeling under an unpopular reputation. Some regard him as a bad guy. Now come more punches from a magazine feature that includes a slideshow of ‘cover sheets that accompanied intelligence updates produced by Rumsfeld’s DOD for Bush.’
These show pictures of soldiers in the field with matching biblical quotations. These might seem innocuous to those who hold the Bible dearly, but for any outsider who may not be too hot on religion, these materials if leaked to the general public (and they have been) may be construed as the US fighting a religious war with Islam. After all, these religious wars have a lot to do with perception, interpretation, and opinion.
The article also mentioned Rumsfeld not allowing active-duty troops to help in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This reportedly angered Bush, especially that he probably already had an inkling that the disaster and crisis mismanagement of Katrina by the US government was one disaster that would do his presidential career in. Rumsfeld insisted that the National Guard was sufficient enough, and that sending active-duty troops would ‘create “unity of command” issues.’
Bush’s tragedy, of course, was trusting Rumsfeld too much during the time he did.
Via salon.com
