|
From the Desk of
Donald Rumsfeld.
In Sometimes-Brusque 'Snowflakes,' He Shared Worldview, Shaped
Policy
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
11/01/07 "Washington
Post" -- -- In a series of internal musings
and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of
the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and
develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for
an increasingly unpopular war.
The memos, often referred to as "snowflakes," shed light on
Rumsfeld's brusque management style and on his efforts to
address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief.
Spanning from 2002 to shortly after his resignation following
the 2006 congressional elections, a sampling of his trademark
missives obtained yesterday reveals a defense secretary
disdainful of media criticism and driven to reshape public
opinion of the Iraq war.
Rumsfeld, whose sometimes abrasive approach often alienated
other Cabinet members and White House staff members, produced 20
to 60 snowflakes a day and regularly poured out his thoughts in
writing as the basis for developing policy, aides said. The
memos are not classified but are marked "for official use only."
In a 2004 memo on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, Rumsfeld
concluded that the challenges there are "not unusual."
Pessimistic news reports -- "our publics risk falling prey to
the argument that all is lost" -- simply result from the wrong
standards being applied, he wrote in one of the memos obtained
by The Washington Post.
Under siege in April 2006, when a series of retired generals
denounced him and called for his resignation in newspaper op-ed
pieces, Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with
military analysts. "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc.
Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the
world by violent extremists," he wrote.
People will "rally" to sacrifice, he noted after the meeting.
"They are looking for leadership. Sacrifice = Victory."
The meeting also led Rumsfeld to write that he needed a team to
help him "go out and push people back, rather than simply
defending" Iraq policy and strategy. "I am always on the
defense. They say I do it well, but you can't win on the
defense," he wrote. "We can't just keep taking hits."
The only man to hold the top Pentagon job twice -- as both the
youngest and the oldest defense secretary -- Rumsfeld suggested
that the public should know that there will be no "terminal
event" in the fight against terrorism like the signing ceremony
on the USS Missouri when Japan surrendered to end World War II.
"It is going to be a long war," he wrote. "Iraq is only one
battleground."
Based on the discussion with military analysts, Rumsfeld tied
Iran and Iraq. "Iran is the concern of the American people, and
if we fail in Iraq, it will advantage Iran," he wrote in his
April 2006 memo.
Rumsfeld declined to comment, but an aide said the points in
that memo were Rumsfeld's distillation of the analysts'
comments, though he added that the secretary is known for using
the term "bumper stickers."
"You are running a story based off of selective quotations and
gross mischaracterizations from a handful of memos -- carefully
picked from the some 20,000 written while Rumsfeld served as
Secretary," Rumsfeld aide Keith Urbahn wrote in an e-mail.
"After almost all meetings, he dictated his recollections of
what was said for his own records."
In one of his longer ruminations, in May 2004, Rumsfeld
considered whether to redefine the terrorism fight as a
"worldwide insurgency." The goal of the enemy, he wrote, is to
"end the state system, using terrorism, to drive the
non-radicals from the world." He then advised aides "to test
what the results could be" if the war on terrorism were renamed.
Neither Europe nor the United Nations understands the threat or
the bigger picture, Rumsfeld complained in the same memo. He
also lamented that oil wealth has at times detached Muslims
"from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads
to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are
against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis
while their young people remain unemployed," he wrote. "An
unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism."
If radicals "get a hold of" oil-rich Saudi Arabia, he added, the
United States will have "an enormous national security problem."
The memos delve into issues beyond Iraq and terrorism. In a memo
to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley in July 2006,
Rumsfeld warned that the United States is "getting run out of
Central Asia" by the Russians, who are doing a "considerably
better job at bullying" than Washington is doing to "counter
their bullying."
As public discontent and congressional questioning grew in 2006,
his final year at the Pentagon, a series of snowflakes revealed
a man determined to counter the chorus of media criticism in
one- or two-line zingers to staff members about specific
articles.
"I think you ought to get a letter off about Ralph Peters' op-ed
in the New York Post. It is terrible," he writes on Feb. 6,
2006. In a Feb. 2 New York Post column, Peters decried "chronic
troop shortages in Iraq" while the Pentagon buys "high-tech toys
that have no missions."
On March 10, he commanded J. Dorrance Smith, the assistant
defense secretary for public affairs, to craft a "better
presentation to respond to this business that the Department of
Defense has no plan. This is just utter nonsense. We need to
knock it down hard." A Washington Post-ABC News poll that month
found that 65 percent of Americans thought that Bush had no plan
for victory.
On March 20, Rumsfeld ordered a point-by-point analysis of the
seven "mistakes" columnist Trudy Rubin wrote about in the
Philadelphia Inquirer and a response to her essay -- which he
wanted to see before it was sent out. Rubin wrote that the war
had "gone sour."
"Please have someone find precisely when I said 'dead-enders'
and what the context was," he ordered Smith in September 2006.
A November 2006 editorial in the New York Times that said the
Army was ruined "is disgraceful," Rumsfeld wrote to Smith. The
editorial said that "one welcome dividend" of Rumsfeld's
departure was that the United States would "now have a chance to
rebuild the Army he spent most of his tenure running down."
Rumsfeld later reprimanded his staff, writing, "I read the
letter we sent in rebuttal. I thought it rather weak and not
signed at the level it should have been." He then instructed
staffers to prepare an article about the Army. "We need to get
that story out," he wrote on Nov. 28, 2006, a Tuesday. He
ordered a draft by Friday.
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
