Rumsfeld Interview

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted in an interview that the country "would've been better off" if he had quit after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal and spared no criticism of his colleagues in his new memoir published Tuesday.

In "Known and Unknown," a memoir by Rumsfeld, defends his handling of the war and recounts his government career serving Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.

However the former Pentagon chief also admitted his biggest error during his tenure under Bush was his failure to convince the president to accept his resignation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

"That was such a stain on our country. To think that people in our custody were treated in that disgusting and perverted and ghastly way -- unacceptable way," Rumsfeld told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.

"And so I stepped up and told the president I thought I should resign. And I think probably he and the military and the Pentagon and the country would've been better off if I had," he said.

The comments came in his first television interview since leaving public life in December 2006 after a long and divisive tenure at the Pentagon.

In his memoir, Rumsfeld meanwhile wrote how he was "surprised and troubled" that US interrogators went further than the controversial methods of detainees at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that had been otherwise approved.




"Known and Unknown" by Donald Rumsfeld is available at your local book store or through Amazon.com

Pelosi to Boehner Transition - The Untold Story

We could only wish!!

New Feature - Idiot Alert, Feb 9th, 2011

I wish I would have saved all the really idiotic Letters to the Editor of local papers that friends and supporters have sent me over the past year. Now that I've decided to create a new feature, called "Idiot Alert" I could have used the material.

An old Cowboy from South Texas, sent me this letter to the editor:

Last Two Years

"Take back the country" has been the Republican and tea party rallying cry for the last two years.

We now know what they mean by this rant. It means take the country backward 200 years to the era of horse and buggy, flintlocks and paths instead of roads.

Republicans and tea partyers want us to follow a Constitution that was designed for life 200 years ago in the American colonies. The GOP and tea party crowd want us to adhere to a 200-year-old Second Amendment that is totally irrelevant in today's society with its modern and sophisticated weapons.

And in a desperate move, Republicans have latched onto Jefferson's 1700s "nullification" doctrine in their latest bid to invalidate health-care reform.

Their effort is totally unconstitutional (and they know it), a waste of time and will go nowhere with the Senate controlled by Democrats -- but it will keep the tea party supporters at a fever pitch.

Ron Lowe

Harlingen, Texas

Wow Ron! Don't know where to start addressing your problem,...but here goes.

So I reckon you support a Constitution that changes with the mood of the vocal minority. Which part of the Constitution would you change? I mean on one hand you're bashing the Constitution as being "totally irrelevant" today, then on the other hand you accuse (without facts) the Republicans of unconstitutional "nullification" of Obamacare. Oh, don't worry about the facts,...your kind never has,...partially because you won't be able to find any facts to support your idiotic rant. And like we say out here where manners matter,....you are entitled to your opinion (no matter how idiotic they are),..you are just not entitled to your own facts,...but again, you don't have any.....So, why don't you crawl up into the ample lap of your hero George Soros and cry on his shoulder.