Despite what the Chief says, the whole "skipper goes down with the ship" business simply is not followed nor encouraged these days, nor should it be. To play the metaphor out, even when the ship is sinking, the skipper has a role to play; to command the crew in damage control operations, to oversee the progress of the launching of the lifeboats, to command the flotilla of lifeboats once they're launched, and to explain what happened before the inevitable board of inquiry. We don't have a military tradition of hara kiri in this country, because, despite how devastated the skipper may feel about the loss of his ship (and his personal responsibility for it), he still has duties to perform.

So does Rumsfeld. A balanced appraisal of his peformance as Secretary of Defense would conclude that he has done some things very well (the first phase of the war was brilliantly executed), and some rather poorly. I have no doubt that Rumsfeld wishes this prisoner abuse had never happened, and I also have no doubt that serious questions will be asked about why it happened, and how we can best ensure that it doesn't happen again. It's pretty clear that this was more than a few bad apples, but was probably a systemic breakdown in training, supervision, discipline, and the communication of US policy to all levels of the command structure. Maybe the military command structure focused its attentions on some issues and neglected others; that certainly seems likely. Clearly, the Secretary of Defense has a responsibility to ensure that these systemic problems are identified and fixed, and the President has an obligation to demand that this happens. The only real question is (or should be) whether Rumsfeld is the right person to oversee this process, or whether his replacement (Wolfowitz, unless he also falls on his sword) would do a better job going forward.

This isn't about our the wisdom of our overall policy or strategy in Iraq; the President is the one who decides that, and the Secretary of Defense advises him on the military's ability to accomplish the missions they are given, and then ensures that the military aspects of the strategy are carried out. It also isn't about whether Rumsfeld should be punished; in fact, it really isn't about Rumsfeld at all. It's about us, and whether we will be better served by having him stay on as Secretary of Defense, or by his replacement. I understand and share everyone's anger and revulsion over what occurred, but ultimately we really need to just recognize where we are today, and figure out what is the best approach to take from here.

Sure, sacking Rumsfeld would probably hurt his feelings, and in so doing it might make a lot of the rest of us feel better. In situations like this it's gratifying to have an individual to focus our anger on. But even if Rumsfeld resigned tomorrow, we would still have a bad situation on our hands, and a lot of difficult problems to solve. That's what we really need to be thinking about.