posted April 07, 2003 at 1:14 p.m. MDTThe requirement for a swing to the far right ... whose hands on the levers of power?
Rumsfeld under three-pronged attack [Asina Times] - "... A coalition of retired senior military officers, moderate Republicans, and even some civilian hawks who have strongly supported Rumsfeld's efforts to "transform" the US military is increasingly taking aim at the Pentagon chief, whom they accuse of intimidating the uniformed military and needlessly alienating Washington's European allies.
In a searing column in Wednesday's New York Times, the former commander of the US central command in the Persian Gulf region, retired Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar, even called on Congress to hold hearings on how the current military campaign in Iraq was conceived and developed and whether Rumsfeld had prevented senior officers from testifying to Congress about their concerns.
Except for a handful of liberals who have expressed alarm at the eagerness with which Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative advisors have taken Washington to war, Democrats have been reluctant to join the attacks lest they be accused of being unpatriotic. But they voted unanimously in key congressional committees on Tuesday for a supplemental 2004 appropriations bill that denied the Pentagon control over a US$2.5 billion fund to provide relief and development assistance in Iraq. The committees instead earmarked the money for the State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID).
In another slap, the House and Senate appropriations committees also deleted a requested $150 million account that Rumsfeld had requested for assistance to unspecified "indigenous forces" involved in the US-led global "war on terrorism"."
