Metro Spirit national security blog

In all the weekend ruckus over the Rumsfeld memo, Juan Cole singles out one of Rummy's parting nuggets of advice that I didn't hear mentioned anywhere else:

"Rumsfeld openly admits that he wants to run Iraq just like Saddam did," Cole writes.

He cites the ex-SecDef's suggestion to "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period."

Says Cole:

I mean, bribing people to be your puppets is bad enough, but citing Saddam's policies as an example for how Iraq should be run is absolutely outrageous.

Get with the program, professor! Don't you know it's the Iraqis' fault?