In an article in today's Washington Post, staff writers Robin Wright and Bradley Graham tell us that
Bush was particularly bothered at not having been told that the photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were in circulation
Is the man mad? Or are Wright and Graham simply wrong? I can see three reactions here, in decreasing order of importance:
(1) Anger that the abuses happened;
(2) Anger that the photographs exist;
(3) Anger that the photographs were in circulation.
As Wright and Graham put it, it would seem that Bush was: (1) aware that such abuses had occurred and were occurring, and considered them either justified or unimportant; and (2) was aware that the photographs existed, but considered the matter unimportant as long as the general public was not exposed to them. No, his anger was for the fact that I (and several hundred million others) could see them. Which, presumably, was why the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Myers, was given the task of going out and doing the White House's dirty work for it, trying to prevent CBS from ever airing those photos.
(I saw General Myers on Meet the Press Sunday morning. This distinguished-looking officer's presentation was pathetic. The best he could say, in answer to Tim Russert's questions about General Taguba's damning report -- which had already been available within military channels for almost two months -- was that he "hadn't read it yet". I have to confess that I felt more sorrow than anger for the man; but when I think about it, there's nothing the man holding the position Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can stand less than pity.)
There have now been calls for Bush to fire Rumsfeld (see Thomas L. Friedman's column in today's New York Times). More to the point, I've seen -- generally before the Abu Ghraib affair become public -- calls to impeach Bush. My own attitude has been: the impeachment process, properly carried out (and assuming that a Republican-dominated Congress would be willing to carry it out), would take more than the half year or so remaining before We, the People, can undertake our own housecleaning. But the question now arises: in that half year or so, how many more catastrophes are going to occur -- or, worse, simply come to light, as Abu Ghraib? And how many of those are going to be irredeemable?