Bush Didn't Know Everything
From Yahoo News (al-Reuters):President Bush, compelled to publicly condemn the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in interviews on Wednesday, has privately expressed annoyance to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over his handling of the issue, aides said.
Bush knew of the allegations in general terms around the time the U.S. military issued a statement about them in mid-January, but aides said he only learned how severe the abuse had been a week ago when CBS broadcast photographs showing Iraqi prisoners in humiliating poses.
The aides said the president had complained to Rumsfeld for not having fully alerted him to the details.
"The president was not satisfied with the way he was informed with regard to the pictures, and he let Secretary Rumsfeld know about it too," a senior administration official said. "He believes it's better to make it known privately instead of pointing fingers."
Matt's Chat
Let me identify the media bias right up front. Bush wasn't "compelled" to do anything. The President is genuinely outraged by the behavior of those responsibile for this fiasco. This outstanding news agency is trying to make it sound as if Bush was made to feel bad about this situation. That isn't the case.The meat of the story is that the President wasn't given all the information. And I believe that to be the truth. This staff has been given a LOT of responsibility; more than most administrations. While were on the subject of media bias, let me clear up another one: CBS did not break the story. The Defense Department started the investigation back in January. The mistake that was made was that Rumsfeld did not give the President the full details; had he done so, I think there would have been much swifter action taken.
There are a number of turf battles going on this administration. That is nothing new either. But ultimately, the President has got to be kept informed. In this case, he wasn't and it has done the war effort some harm. (Although there is some question about how damaging this really is in the Arab world. Afterall, we're prosecuting this bunch of thugs; Saddam would have promoted his.) Being a delegating kind of leader myself, I know that it is important to ask my team a lot of questions. Rumsfeld told the President that he had this investigation in hand, the President believed him. End of story. At least until the court martial.
