"Rumsfeld snub of war hearing draws fire "

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060802/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rumsfeld




WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he essentially was too busy to testify at a public hearing on the Iraq war, raising a new furor on Capitol Hill over the three-year-old conflict.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters Wednesday, Rumsfeld said he thought it was enough for him to attend a private briefing with the entire Senate on Thursday. Citing his crowded calendar, he declined the Senate Armed Services Committee's request to testify publicly on Thursday morning.

Rumsfeld's decision drew protests from committee Democrats who said much had changed in the six months since he last testified and took questions from the committee. The request for his appearance came from the committee chairman, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., and the top Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan.

<snip>

Rumsfeld also offered an explanation for why as many as two-thirds of the Army's brigades and many National Guard units are rated not ready for combat. He said the Pentagon is wrestling with standards that would best describe the condition of the units. And he noted that highly experienced units coming home from Iraq leave a lot of equipment behind, and as a result are considered not combat ready.

"The Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years ago," he said. "It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's better trained and more experienced."

[pinto]

1. Good. I'd like to hear the press ask Mr. Snow why our Sec. of Defense

hasn't made an in-person, public statement to Congress since February. (Seems Mr. Snow is the only Administration representative available for real time communication...which is a little weird)

[leftchick]

2. a lot weird

when you consider snow is a TV celebrity as well. :crazy:

[pinto]

4. No shit. I found myself shaking my head today, Tony Snow

was explaining our foreign policy to the world press. Bush had a freaking photo op today. Seems the world situation is serious enough that he could have taken a couple of minutes to at least mouth the usual platitudes. Or acknowledge, at a minimum, that there's a real world out there that's on a lot of John and Jane Doe's minds.

Guess I just can't shake this sense that we have a rudderless government just now. They've fallen and can't get up. That's my 2 cents.

[babylonsister]

3. Can't stand that heat, or sick of lying and getting caught? nt