A report out of Washington today reflects that Russians admitted to the American Central Command collected invasion plans data and passed it to Saddam Hussein before the war began. Because the Cold War has ended we have Russians in the heart of the American Command responsible for planning the Iraq War. The Russians told us early on they would not back any military force against Saddam, so why the hell were they still admitted to the planning rooms? Why were they and any representatives of other countries opposed to the war not asked to leave temporarily?
Hollywood got it right, why can’t Washington? For example, General Buck Turgidson said Russians are basically spies who cannot be trusted and was absolutely correct to express outrage to President Merkin Muffley about one being admitted to the war room.
In case you don’t recall Turgidson, he was the Air Force Chief of Staff (portrayed by George C. Scott, who morphed into Patton in 1970) in the 1964 movie, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
President Merkin Muffley (one of three characters played by the late Peter Sellers in the film) invited the Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky (Peter Bull) into the American War Room deep in the bowels of the Pentagon to discuss ways to stop the American bomber wing dispatched to destroy the Soviet Union by an utterly mad U.S. Air Force Colonel Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden, who commanded an OSS boat in the Adriatic Sea during WWII).
If Hollywood can get it right, why can’t Washington? Where are the Turgidson’s in this day and age?
