I think he is just trying to cover his ass. Rumsfeld was Cheney's soul-mate and he was as enthusiastic as anyone about the Iraq War. I don't buy it that he had doubts and just followed Bush's orders.
Yeah but I do think rushing toward elections was Bush being naive. That was all Dubya's idea.
If Cheney/Rummy/Wolfowitz had the final say, the Coalition Provisional Authority would have stayed in power for a longer period of time and they would have slowly incorporated more Iraqis into it over a period of several years. Then they would hand-pick someone to be the "transitional president" who would ultimately keep delaying elections and stay in power indefinitely with the tacit blessing of the US but wouldn't engage in overtly oppressive behavior like Saddam did. Their ideal candidate would probably be an Iraqi version of Mahmoud Abbas.
