How Rumsfeld's Resignation Is Playing in Iraq

News of the Defense Secretary's departure had relatively little impact on most Iraqis. But they're looking to the Democrats' victory to help speed a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

If Rumsfeld was an ogre for the anti-war movement in the West, in Iraq he was never anything like a bogeyman. Only a few Western-educated politicians really understand the role of a U.S. Secretary of Defense, and what power it commands. Rumsfeld's persona — that dismissive arrogance that so infuriated his critics at home — was usually lost in translation on Arabic-language TV.