Either David Frum is an idiot or he has a serious man-crush on Rumskull.

Thanks to Brad DeLong (look for "Remember: The Cossacks Work for the Czar!"), I read David Frum's review of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. In that review, Frum creates a new defense of Rumskull. Frum says that Rumskull is not at all to blame for all the problems in Iraq. Instead, the fault all lies with Tommy Franks. Sometime soon I will go through Frum's review piece by piece and explain why his theory is complete crap, but for now I will keep things brief. I am not a big Franks fan, but I also feel that anyone who thinks that Franks did all the planning on his own without any direction from Rumskull is flat out wrong. As I have said since August of 2004, the official campaign planning doctrine applicable to the Iraq war held that the military commanders--and that would include Franks--were required to plan a campaign (which would include the post-conflict period) that would meet the objectives as determined by the President and the freakin' Secretary of Defense. As I have also said before, while Franks deserves some blame, the ultimate blame rests with Bush and Rumskull. I last raised these matters on April 24, 2006 and April 22, 2006. And if you want to read more (lots more), go to the Cosmic Wheel Index subheading of "Planning for the post-war period" under the "Iraq" topic heading.

Frum's campaign to smear Franks just to take the spotlight off Rumskull is desperate and pathetic.