Translating Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld: Iraq must take over security

Robert Burns, Associated Press:

The Iraqi government is going to have to take over its country's security "sooner rather than later," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday, as the violence there continued to escalate.

Rumsfeld said U.S. officials, including Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, are working with the Iraqi government to develop projections as to when they think they can pass off various pieces of responsibility. He provided no detail.

"The biggest mistake would be to not pass things over to the Iraqis, create a dependency on their part, instead of developing strength and capacity and competence," said Rumsfeld. "It's their country, they're going to have to govern it, they're going to have to provide security for it, and they're going to have to do it sooner rather than later. And that means they've got to take pieces of it as we go along."

Translation: "We're not cutting and running. At the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, for whom we cared nothing, and only a few thousand lives of Americans for whom we cared nothing, we've now insured that there will be decades of war between Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, with no faction strong enough to prevent US oil companies from taking control of the oil resources of the region formerly known as Iraq. Mission accomplished."