If Rumsfeld Is Driven Out, We All Lose

This is not the first press assault on Rumsfeld, to be sure. The military, which he set out to reform on his arrival at the Pentagon and some of whose favorite weapons systems he canceled, had its day in the press not very long after his installation at the Pentagon. There were cries beginning the third day of the war in Iraq that Rumsfeld bore the responsibility for what would be our certain defeat there. And since the fall of Baghdad, every loss of American life has been held to his account.

Now he is in the administration doghouse for failing to show the president the pictures of what was done to the prisoners, not to mention for having caused an irreparably bad odor among senators by failing to share with them the contents of interrogations that had not been completed yet. Out of such kindergarten stuff is fabricated the latest, and most joyful, assault on one of the most capable public servants in living memory.

Aside from the part this ersatz scandal no doubt will be made to play in the Democratic presidential campaign, this tempest in a teapot about the brutal behavior of a small group of young thugs in wartime says something disturbing about us as a people. This country was assaulted and went to war and may be at war for a long time, for the terrorists who are out to get us have found support and will be provided with ever more dangerous weapons in and by countries beyond Iraq.

Should we achieve it, success in Iraq will have a serious effect on them. Should a desire to cut and run -- which is the message logically contained in the continual light-minded assault on one of the most intelligent and steady-nerved public servants this country has seen in many a year -- come to pass, the consequences will be felt for who knows how many generations.

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Midge Decter is the author of numerous books, among them "Rumsfeld: a Personal Portrait" (Regan Books, 2004).