Rumsfeld: Iraq No Safer Today Than When We Entered Baghdad

According to the Times of London, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told David Frost on BBC's Newsnight that okay, yes, fine, Iraq is "statistically" no safer today than it was at the end of the war. After further prodding, Rummy admitted sure, if you want to get technical, the insurgency was stronger today than when the US took over the country (Rummy said when "the Coalition" took over, but give me a break).

And who does Rummy blame? His own foolish policy of minimal troops that still can't keep the peace? (Thomas Friedman calls for doubling the troops there in today's New York Times.) Nope. Does Rummy blame Saudi Arabia, the world's number one funder of terrorism and which has spread radical Islam throughout the Muslim world? Wrong again. Does he blame Pakistan, which has sold weapons and know-how to terrorist groups around the world? Nah. Does Rummy blame his own failure to secure ANY of the massive stockpiles of weapons that the UN had its eye on, that the US knew were there and which insurgents plundered long after Baghdad fell and which have now turned those weapons against our men and women in uniform? No, no, no.

Rummy blames...Syria. Uh, Syria, you might want to remain very still and very, very quiet for the next 3 and a half years.