Precarious Rumsfeld

Despite this, President Bush insists Rumsfeld will keep his job. Bush took Rumsfeld aside at the White House to chastise him for not informing him of graphic photos and an official report on the scandal. The president intended to leave the Rumsfeld matter at that. But aides leaked word of the “mild rebuke” by Bush to the press, thinking this would make Bush look better. The leak was not ordered (or expected) by the president or his chief political adviser, Karl Rove.

Nonetheless, the leak required a response by Bush the next day when he and Jordanian King Abdullah met with reporters in the Rose Garden. Bush had planned to apologize for the prison abuse but he also had to prop up Rumsfeld. “Secretary Rumsfeld has served our nation well . . . [and] has been been the secretary during two wars,” he said. “And he’s an important part of my Cabinet and he’ll stay in my Cabinet.” But isn’t there a remote possibility Rumsfeld will have to go? “There is no way,” a senior Bush aide said.

But there is a way–in fact, more than one. The first is the Graham scenario of a scandal that gets much worse with more evidence of abuse becoming public. That would increase pressure for Rumsfeld’s departure, prompting some Republicans to join the opposition. For now, the cries for Rumsfeld’s head are coming from Democrats and the media. The Democratic attacks are actually counterproductive. They make the scandal a political matter, and the effect on Bush is to make him all the more stubborn about keeping Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.

Another way is the Tony Blair scenario. The British prime minister’s commitment to the effort in Iraq is critical. Bush is deeply in his debt. Blair has been steadfast but his alliance with Bush is not popular in England. Nonetheless, he declared in an address to Congress last July that Iraq is “a battle worth fighting.” Then he offered an eloquent explanation of why America must be involved in Iraq:

The point is Blair is in a unique position that would allow him to ask Bush to fire Rumsfeld. True, this would be presumptuous and it’s highly unlikely. But what if Blair’s domestic political problems deepened and he needed some sacrifice by Bush to show he’s not the president’s poodle and thus to maintain the alliance. It’s not inconceivable Rumsfeld could be that sacrifice.

The third way that Rumsfeld might be doomed is a lingering scandal. Bush’s apology for the prisoner abuse followed by Rumsfeld’s failed to quash it. And though Rumsfeld, in his testimony before the Senate and House last week, was well prepared and contrite, he left too many questions unanswered for the scandal to die quickly. This wasn’t entirely Rumsfeld’s fault. Some of the questions can only be answered by investigations that aren’t completed–questions like what were the precise instructions given to the soldiers to prepare detainees for interrogation and who gave the orders at the prison. When serious questions remain, scandals linger.

If it drags on for weeks, Rumsfeld’s trouble will deepen. The president is to travel to France for a celebration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day in June. That is followed by a meeting of the G-8 summit at Sea Island, Georgia, bringing together leaders of the industrial democracies. Bush doesn’t want to be peppered with questions about the scandal or Rumsfeld at those events. By then, he needs the scandal to have ebbed.

It probably will have. Certainly it should have. After all, Rumsfeld’s only mistakes were ones of process, failing to alert Bush or Congress about the photos of abuse and the existence of a report on the prison wrongdoing. At the White House, it’s hoped the president’s radio address and his visit to the Pentagon this week will further douse the scandal. “That will dampen it down,” a Bush aide said. For Rumsfeld’s sake, the aide better be right.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.