Talk about keeping up a game face. After 16 Americans were killed and twenty one injured this weekend in the single largest attack on U.S. troops in Iraq since combat operations ceased, Donald Rumsfeld was on Meet the Press saying that the American people are ready for whatever comes next there. “They know that what’s taking place is tragic” he said, “but they also know it’s necessary.”
Despite the Defense Secretary’s “cowboy up” rhetoric, critics are saying that it didn’t have to be this way, and that much of the chaos and killing could have been avoided if the Pentagon hadn’t disregarded the advice of State Department experts who spent months laying the groundwork for a democratic transition in Iraq.
Guests:
David Rieff, NYTimes writer
David Phillips, former advisor to State Department’s Future of Iraq Project
Feisal Istrabadi, former member of Future of Iraq Project and senior fellow, DePaul University School of Law and TBA.