Douche

There was one piece of technology that Rumsfeld used before the war started -- something that was apparently a higher priority than planning and armoring. He made sure that a machine was ready to mechanically stamp his signature on condolense letters.

The fucker then avoided admitting he did it until yesterday.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will begin personally signing condolence letters sent to families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, after receiving criticism over his use of mechanical signatures.

In a statement provided to Stars and Stripes on Thursday, Rumsfeld tacitly admitted that in the past he has not personally signed the letters, but said he was responsible for writing and approving each of the 1,000-plus messages sent to the fallen soldiers’ families.

“I have directed that in the future I sign each letter,” he said in the statement.

“I am deeply grateful for the many letters I have received from the families of those who have been killed in the service of our country, and I recognize and honor their personal loss.”

In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said, “In the interest of ensuring timely contact with grieving family members, he has not individually signed each letter.”

Department of Defense officials for the past few weeks had said only that the content of the letters was private.

But several families of troops killed overseas said they were sure the notes they received had not been signed by hand, and said they were angry that Rumsfeld was not paying attention to their loss.

“To me it’s an insult, not only as someone who lost a loved one but also as someone who served in Iraq,” Army Spc. Ivan Medina told Stripes.

“This doesn’t show our families the respect they deserve,” said Medina, a New York resident whose twin brother, Irving, was killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq this summer.

Illinois resident Bette Sullivan, whose son John was killed in November 2003 while working as an Army mechanic in Iraq, was incensed when she, her son’s wife and her grandchildren received the exact same condolence letter with the apparently stamped signature.

“If each family receives two copies, how many signatures does that amount to?” she asked in an e-mail response to Stripes. “I can understand the use of stamped signatures for his brothers’ mementos, but for those of his wife and children and mother? No, no, no.”

Oh, and by the way:

Family members had expressed similar concerns to Stripes about President Bush’s signature on his condolence letters, but Allen Abney, spokesman for the president, said that Bush does personally sign the letters sent from the White House.

Could somebody from the SCLM get on that one?