Rumsfeld, Master of Charm, Wit and Illusion. Time to do a disappearing act.

There is much discussion about Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s style, at present, but very little about the caliber of the man as a whole as manifested by his track record since his appointment. That’s a pity. It’s revealing.

After Rumsfeld was sworn in as Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001 it soon became clear within the Pentagon that he was both a force to be reckoned with, and had an agenda. Within months there were few generals who did not complain about his arrogance, his secretiveness, his acerbic manner, his lack of respect for their rank and dignity, and his dismissiveness. In short, he became widely disliked.

He became particularly unpopular with the Army leadership. There, he became associated with wanting to cut the Army by a further two divisions – there were ten in the active component at the time – in order to fund missile defense and bombers. In short, he was perceived as being all about technology and having little time for boots on the ground.

His relationship with Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, was so poor as to border on active hostility. Simply put, the two men gave every appearance of loathing each other. In real terms, they did not have a working relationship. Shinseki, whose ideas about transforming the Army were deeply flawed, was not innocent in this regard.

Given these circumstances, Rumsfeld could have been expected to sack a number of senior generals, both to clear out dead wood, and to make the point that civilian control of the military was to be taken seriously. Instead, having riled the generals, he did nothing, thus revealing that he was more about bluster than bite. He knew that if he sacked generals he would encounter serious opposition in Congress, and he was not prepared to take such political risks. Fundamentally, Rumsfeld, for all his reputation as a tough chief executive, is primarily an opportunistic, turf oriented, politician. He will huff and puff and bluff, but, when push comes to shove, he will not take the hard decisions if his personal position is, thus, to be put at risk. Widely known as a consummate bureaucratic in-fighter, pragmatism, rather than principle, is his guide. In essence, he is not a leader; he is a careerist, a perfect example of the modern Washington public servant.

Like tends to recognize like, and the generals were not slow to spot this core weakness. Despite all the noise, it would be business as usual in the Pentagon. Favored programs, even though they made no sense in the current threat environment, would be continued. Nothing would fundamentally change. Generals would retire to well paid jobs in the defense community. Budgets would not be cut. The money flow would continue. The military industrial political complex was safe.

After 9/11, and the Army leadership’s overly cautious and slow response when called to action, Rumsfeld had a further opportunity – and every good reason - to remove General Shinseki, but, once again, he backed away.

Rumsfeld is widely accused of sacking General Shinseki from his position as Army Chief of Staff for stating in Congress that, in his opinion, several hundred thousand troops would needed to implement Operation Iraqi Freedom. That widely believed story is utterly untrue. General Shinseki served his full term of four years – with his authority undiminished until the very end. All that actually happened was that Shinseki’s successor, General Jack Keane, then the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, was named ahead of time and, ironically, the effect of that decision did more to weaken Keane than Shinseki; and, in the end, Keane did not take the post. In sum, Rumsfeld initiated a bureaucratic maneuver against Shinseki that backfired.

Sources close to Rumsfeld describe him as “flying at 100, 000 feet.” What they mean by that is not just that Rumsfeld is overly occupied with the big picture at the expense of the detail of execution, but that he is dangerously ignorant of the details, in many cases, and much more concerned with implementing his political agenda, and expanding his bureaucratic empire, than with making sure that the Department of Defense – and the War on Terror – is being run effectively.

Insiders say that Rumsfeld has good instincts, such as over his concern about the poor quality of many Army generals, but that his lack of moral courage – which many regard as indecisiveness – and lack of understanding of military detail, hopelessly undermine him operationally. They also say that Rumsfeld’s dependence on a constantly recycled list of relatively lightweight aides such as Douglas Feif, Stephen Cambone and Larry de Rita, does nor reflect well on him; and that he shares President Bush’s tendency to be excessively dependent on cronies instead of seeking out independently minded talent.

It is appreciated that this picture of Rumsfeld is at odds with his media image as a charming, straight-talking, decisive and effective Secretary of Defense, but it is supported both by inside sources, and by a truly significant quantity of evidence.

Most compellingly, many of Rumsfeld’s actions and decisions, or failures to take action, demonstrate clearly that there is a serious gap between the image and the substance of the man.

• Although well aware in 2001 that he had a serious – and very real - problem with the competence of a number of senior Army generals, he took no action. Further, he showed weakness in dealing with General Shinseki despite the fact that he considered Shinseki, for very good reasons, unfit for his post as Army Chief of Staff. These decisions, or lack of decisions, were to prove disastrous in the case of Iraq. Why? Because inadequate Army generals ended up running the operation. Here, it is worthwhile contrasting the example of General Marshal who sacked dozens of Army generals and hundreds of colonels when he took office. He knew fully well that the garrison peacetime Army had produced more careerist blockheads than creative warfighters. After all, these were the same type of people who had court-martialed Billy Mitchell for warning of the potential of aerial warfare; and who had derided the tank in favor of horse cavalry as late as the 1930s. The core Army officer culture of careerist anti-intellectualism has not changed over the decades.
• Although well aware that his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, was not up his job, Secretary Rumsfeld left him there for President Bush’s first term because it would have been politically difficult to take action. The problem there was that the Deputy Secretary’s is supposed to run the Department of Defense on a day to day basis. Given that Wolfowitz was notorious for doing nothing and avoiding all confrontation, yet was pushing a neoconservative agenda – which included invading Iraq - the end result was disastrous. Fortunately, today, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, Wolfowitz’s successor, is proving to be vastly better. Unfortunately, he, too, has a defense contractor background – and it is too late.
• Although he was, and is, well aware that budget of the Department of Defense was, and is, effectively out of control, Secretary Rumsfeld, perhaps because of his close ties with defense contractors, has taken no action. Not only are we now spending more on defense than the rest of the world put together – a truly extraordinary situation – but we are getting far fewer individual platforms for the money because the platforms we are buying are now so complex and expensive they cost vastly more. It would be hard to find a better example of what happens when generals are allowed to pick their own toys without proper civilian control. Experts call this process the death spiral because costs per unit increase so much eventually one can only afford one per category. Ridiculous though that sounds, reflect that the B2 bomber now costs about $2 billion per unit and that because of its complexity only about 30% are available for action at one time – yielding an effective cost of about $6 billion per operational bomber. The Israelis run their entire defense forces – Army, Navy and Air Force - on about twice that amount, and they are scarcely deficient in either size or sophistication.

Secretary Rumsfeld’s errors in relation to both Afghanistan and Iraq are, arguably, too numerous to mention in detail, but certain points are worth covering.
• Rumsfeld allowed himself to be distracted – by the invasion and occupation of Iraq - from the entirely valid pursuit of Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban very early on, with the result that not only are the Taliban resurgent, and Afghanistan under-resourced and unstable, but Bin Laden has not been caught.
• Rumsfeld was, and remains, an active participant in the Administration’s extraordinarily destructive policies towards the detention of detainees. These led, inevitably, to a climate where abuse towards prisoners was not just tolerated, but actively encouraged; and which, in turn, led to scandals such as Abu Ghraib and many others. The strategic effect of these policies has been to cost the U.S. the moral high ground in the War on Terror, to alienate potential allies and to build support for our enemies. Mistreatment of prisoners is also of dubious military effectiveness, particularly in an insurgency where winning the support of the local community is so essential. And it is wrong.
• Rumsfeld’s sustained involvement in the formulation of the attack plan to remove Saddam Hussein is a matter of record. Accordingly, it is near inexplicable that he should have given so little attention to what would happen after Saddam was toppled. Arrogance or ignorance or both? One can but conjecture. However, we do know that the consequences – which were predictable, and which are still with us – have proved to be disastrous. Two of his failures in this regard are worth identifying: Firstly, he was party to the fatal decision to disband the Iraqi Army; secondly, he was party to the strange decision to appoint the entirely inadequate Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez as land forces commander in Iraq.

Rumsfeld has claimed credit for transforming the U.S. military to make it leaner, lighter and more expeditionary – and, thus, more capable of fighting the GWOT (the Global War On Terror). The evidence suggests that not only are we losing the war in Iraq, but the military remain as service oriented, and procurement driven as ever. Further, the facts are that where change has taken place, the initiatives for such changes, whether for better or worse, normally started before Secretary Rumsfeld took office.

The attack on Secretary Rumsfeld by the posse of retired generals should not lead to his dismissal. The retired generals, in most cases, were part of the problem and are now trying to distance themselves from the failure in Iraq. No, Secretary Rumsfeld should go because of his failures in his job. Being charming and witty and a master of illusion is not a substitute for competence when it comes to being Secretary of Defense of this nation.