Tom Harkin: “the Senate really should not have to debate the need to replace Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. If the Bush…”

“the Senate really should not have to debate the need to replace Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. If the Bush administration believed in accountability, if it believed in performance standards, if it believed in demanding competence from senior officials, Mr. Rumsfeld would have been dismissed long ago. Instead, as disaster after disaster has followed disaster after disaster, and as Iraq descended first into guerrilla war and into civil war, Mr. Rumsfeld has been allowed to cling to his job. For the record, I was the first Senator to call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. I did so nearly 2\1/2\ years ago, on May 6, 2004, in response to the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. As I said then: For the good of our country, the safety of our troops, and our image around the globe, Secretary Rumsfeld should resign. If he does not resign forthwith, the President should fire him. I said that on May 6, 2004. However, the scandal at Abu Ghraib is not the only disaster that can be traced directly to Mr. Rumsfeld. The Secretary of Defense has become virtually synonymous with disastrous decisionmaking. The litany of his catastrophic mistakes is familiar to all of us. Before the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld sidelined General Shinseki, then the Army Chief of Staff, for daring to state that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure Iraq. Instead, Mr.…”