PBS FRONTLINE: RUMSFELD'S WAR 4 OF 5

PBS FRONTLINE: RUMSFELD'S WAR PART 4 OF 5

With thousands of Iraqis arrested and imprisoned, stunning pictures surface of American abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. What has happened at the prison is similar to what the JAGs were predicting a year before when they were battling Rumsfeld and civilian lawyers over rules of treatment and interrogation.

But Abu Ghraib also comes to symbolize something much larger. "The real significance of Abu Ghraib," says Dana Priest of The Washington Post, is that it's a symbol of the unpreparedness of the military to deal with the chaos and the insurgency of the post-war period. They did not think they would be running prisons, so they had nobody to run the prisons."

As the year ends, roughly 135,000 troops are still in Iraq. As the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks points out, "It is the first sustained ground combat the U.S. mililtary has fought with a volunteer force in over 100 years."

By autumn of 2004, the initial looting and chaos that erupted in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion has spawned an increasing insurgency against coalition forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

With mounting casualties in Iraq and without a clear exit strategy in either Iraq or Afghanistan, Rumsfeld's critics charge the Secretary Rumsfeld has pushed too far. The danger, they say, is a military incapable of effectively fighting the next major conflict.