Guest Opinion: Hallmark of Rumsfeld’s reign was human suffering
NPP Pressroom
The Intelligencer
Andrew Mills
07/20/2021
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld died last month on June 29. It’s too bad the memories and horrifying results of the wars he started can’t die with him. Unfortunately, we are still living with the catastrophic consequences of his actions and those of his fellow neoconservative ideologues surrounding President George W. Bush.
They saw in the 9/11 attacks of 2001 an opportunity to go to war and they took it. On Sept. 12, Rumsfeld began crafting the invasion of Afghanistan.
But for Rumsfeld, and for then Vice President Dick Cheney, Afghanistan was never really the point. It was a gateway war, laying the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq. War in Iraq had been on their agenda for years, and Rumsfeld made it front and center just 24 hours after the Twin Towers collapsed.
The reasons included: Control of oil; establishment of U.S. military base; and destruction of a regional power challenging Washington’s and Israel’s hegemony in the Middle East.
Rumsfeld’s false claims and lies justifying the war in Iraq are well known. The biggest lie of all was the allegation that the Iraqi government was connected to the 9/11 attacks. Then, there were the scandals involving torture by U.S. personnel and U.S. military contractors which Rumsfeld permitted or encouraged — at CIA “black sites” in other countries around the world and at prisons built by the Pentagon across Iraq — Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.
The human, environmental, economic and social costs of Rumsfeld’s war in Iraq are staggering. According to the National Priorities Project, Rumsfeld’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost U.S. taxpayers $5.4 trillion and counting.
Iraq Body Count — https://iraqbodycount.org — has documented approximately 288,000 deaths due to Rumsfeld’s Iraq war. Of those, about 200,000 deaths were of civilians.
It was a mixture of extreme arrogance and a cavalier disregard for human suffering and integrity that was the hallmark of Rumsfeld’s reign. After leaving office, Rumsfeld regretted nothing and apologized for nothing. But history will not be so lenient.
Andrew Mills is a resident of Lower Gwynedd.