And I'll be interested in many things in there but right now I admit to laughing most at
all this:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday defended a top aide who was severely criticized by Gen. Tommy Franks, the top U.S. commander in the Iraq war.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Rumsfeld called Undersecretary Douglas Feith ``without question one of the most brilliant individuals in government.''
Franks wrote in his autobiography ``American Soldier'' that Feith was ``getting a reputation around here as the dumbest (expletive) guy on the planet.''
While Feith, a lawyer schooled at Harvard and Georgetown, had academic credentials and was personally likable, he posed ``off-the-wall questions without relevance to problems,'' Franks wrote.
The general offered softer criticism of Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Rumsfeld called Franks' criticism ``kind of strange'' and said the general was a ``world-class gentleman.''
Feith, Rumsfeld said, ``is just a rare talent. He is one of the intellectual leaders in the administration.''
Franks had some other things to say to the BBC about the future:
General Tommy Franks told BBC's Newsnight he believed that would be the time it took for Iraqis to take full control of their country.
He said US-led troops would have to stay in Afghanistan for a similar amount of time.
But he said that did not mean troop levels would have to remain as high.
"I think in Iraq the total process, until Iraqis are as firmly and fully in charge of their country as they would want to be, is three to five years," he told Newsnight.
"That doesn't mean we will see the level of 10,000 Brits and 140,000 or so Americans for the next two to four years."
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 5 August 2004 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)