Rummy pathetically fishes for an excuse:
The fault, Mr. Rumsfeld contended in two appearances on television talk shows, rested with Turkey, a NATO ally, which would not give permission for the Fourth Infantry Division to cross its territory and open a northern front at the start of the war in March 2003.
"Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly, if we had been able to get the Fourth Infantry Division in from the north through Turkey, more of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein Baathist regime would have been captured or killed," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Boy, that's gonna go over well there--especially considering that anti-US diatribe/sci-fi novel Metal Storm is such a big hit in Asia Minor. But, back to the subject at hand: how exactly would a northern front manage to avert the "catastrophic success" that was the march to Baghdad in the first place? According to Donald "the-dog-ate-my-Iraqi-battle-plan" Rumsfeld, it would've been the old hammer and anvil approach--whereupon Dumsfeld contradicted himself, noting that
...the large fraction of the Iraqi military and intelligence services just dissipated into the communities.
Hmmm. Like they wouldn't have otherwise? Dissipation isn't the most precise of terms, but I believe the process, in a military sense, involves changing your clothes and blending into the community. That isn't all that difficult to do, particularly when you consider that US forces were for a time attempting to ingratiate themselves with the same. I believe what Rummy is ultimately doing is telling a big old fish story--"we had it on the reel, but then..."--you know the rest.
Or, maybe he really IS blaming THE turkey...
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