Are you free...

...to take the blame? George W. Bush is the chief executive of the United States of America and the Commander in Chief. In other words, he is ultimately responsible for political and military decisions made by the USA. Yet we have this recurring spectacle of an OJ Simpson-like search for the "real killer" whenever one of these decisions goes awry.

A while ago it was some nefarious person slipping lines about uranium in Africa into his State of the Union speech. Now it's the question of who is responsible for the decision to create a pret-a-batailler Iraqi resistance by disbanding the Iraqi army. And judging by the new theory being leaked to the papers, it looks like the Dubya spinners have been subconsciously influenced by their extensive research on Britain before his big visit, which apparently involved watching lots of episodes of Are You Being Served. For, via Josh Marshall, we learn that the blame game is proceeding as follows:

The demobilization decision appears to have originated largely with Walter B. Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense appointed to oversee Iraqi security forces.

Ah yes, the tried and trusted scapegoating technique of getting out an organisation chart and picking the first functionary whose name catches the attention -- in this case, a reminder of the wonderful Mrs Slocombe. Anyone in the White House with names like Humphries or Lucas or Rumbold needs to watch out.