While Donald Rumsfeld is saying (on various Sunday news shows) that it will take twelve years to put down the insurgency in Iraq, the Iraqi PM is saying it will take only two years. So, it is apparent Don and Ibrahim are not coordinating their messages, or are they? It seems likely that, while they both recognize and know the reality that they face, they articulate different messages for different audiences. It serves Rumsfeld's interests of being open-ended and vague by saying it could take twelve years, and it serves al-Jaafari's interests to say, to an Arab newspaper, it will only take two years, showing his purpose and resolve to end this fast. Both of them know that neither has any idea how long it might take, or what it will take, or if they might ever be successful.
Rumsfeld says that the American military can't end the insurgency, it will be the Iraqi military that will do it. Rumsfeld does reassure us that we will be gone before the twelve years are up (don't bet on it). Does that mean eleven and half years? In the meantime, we have American military commanders telling US Senators that it will take at least another two years to train enough Iraqis to fight the insurgency.
In his Sunday interviews, Rumsfeld also supported VP Cheney's musings about the "last throes" of the insurgency, urging one interviewer to look up the meaning: "If you look up 'last throes,' it can mean a violent last throe'." Of course, the word throe has many meanings, one of which can mean attack. there is nothing inherently unsuccessful about a throe, last or otherwise.
Cheney and Rumsfeld are using language again to scam the American people. Twelve years is a long time. The networkof large American bases in Iraq are not going to be disassembled any time soon. Our presence there is too strategically important for us to cut and run. We have invested too much.
One thing for usre, Cheney and Rumsfeld probably won't be around to answer for their perfidy in twelve years.
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