Be assured, I take full responsibility for this column
By Bill McClellan
Of the Post-Dispatch
05/10/2004

Good morning. I want to first say that it is a thrill and an honor to deliver the commencement address to you, the class of ... What class are you? Pardon me? Oh, yes, the class of 2004. That's right. Well, again, let me say good morning.

Uh, uh, have I said it's an honor to be here? Well, uh, good. If I seem to be stumbling around, there's a reason. To be honest with you, I completely forgot I was supposed to be here this morning until just a few minutes ago, and, uh, what I'm trying to say is this: I did not prepare any remarks. You are not going to have a commencement address. But, and this is important, I take full responsibility for that.

What does that mean, you might well ask, when a person takes full responsibility for something?

That depends on where you are, what culture you are in. Be very careful, for instance, of ever taking responsibility for something in Japan. They are serious about this over there. Did you know that if an executive in Japan says he is taking responsibility for something that went wrong, he is really saying that he is going to quit?

Fortunately, we're not quite so literal-minded in this country. For instance, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went before Congress just last week to testify about the allegations of abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Many people have been demanding that Rumsfeld resign. He marched into that congressional hearing and said, "In recent days there has been a good deal of discussion about who bears responsibility for the terrible activities that took place at Abu Ghraib. These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility."

Full responsibility! He took full responsibility. What, exactly, did that mean?

Did it mean that he was going to resign? Of course not. This isn't Japan. Did he mean that if anybody ought to be prosecuted, it should be him? Of course not. In fact, he pretty much assured us that the National Guardsmen who served at the prison would be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

And why shouldn't they be? They have not accepted full responsibility!

Now, it is true - and neither Rumsfeld nor I can deny it - that these guardsmen were not trained in prison work. It may even be true that they were told to "soften the prisoners up." In other words, they may have been following orders while doing a job they were unprepared to do. All we know for sure is that they were sent to Iraq by an administration that assured us that our troops would be greeted as liberators. This whole adventure would be over in a matter of weeks. Why it was just a year ago that President Bush himself put on a flight suit and strutted around on the deck of that aircraft carrier with the big "Mission Accomplished" sign in the background.

Oh, those were good days, weren't they? Anybody who questioned this whole thing was shouted down. Why was anybody complaining? We were going to be greeted as liberators, and Iraqi oil would pay for the whole thing.

Well, OK, it didn't quite work out that way. A good number of the people were hostile, and we ended up with prisoners, and that meant we needed prison guards. Who'd have expected that? And yes, there were abuses, and now Rumsfeld, at the very top of the chain of command, takes full responsibility, which means that the people at the very bottom of the chain will be prosecuted.

By the way, Rumsfeld has also suggested that prisoners who were abused receive compensation. The good news is people like me and Rumsfeld won't have to pick up the check. You see, this war has turned out to be expensive - forget that stuff about Iraqi oil paying for everything - and it might be politically risky to ask the voters to pay for it, so the administration is putting it on the old credit card. That's right. Someday you young people will have to pay for it. After all, deficit spending doesn't make the bills go away, it just defers them.

But don't be angry at us for putting this on your backs. We take full responsibility.

E-mail: bmcclellan@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8143