How Rummy Spun Bush, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

The other major scoop to come out of the Draper piece was Rumsfeld's blundering during Katrina, which the Daily Beast summed as follows:

Rumsfeld threw truck-size obstacles in the way of deploying troops to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Claiming that there’d be problems with “unity of command,” Rumsfeld was adamant that only the National Guard be sent outbut they were slow in arriving and did little to stem the chaos. Bush snapped at him for the disorder in a meeting about the situation: “Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on there? Are you watching what’s on television? Is that the United States of America or some Third World nation I’m watching? What the hell are you doing?” Five days after the hurricane hit, Bush told Rumsfeld he had to deploy troops. “If we had put those troops in on Thursday, the narrative of Katrina would be a very different one,” one senior official said.

Also, Hilzoy picks apart another damning revelation: Rummy's obstinacy with Russia over nuclear arms. Benen sighs, "And here I thought Rumsfeld was a nightmare at the Pentagon before reading the Draper piece."