Too Late

27 October 2003


The Rumsfeld Memo: The Slow Class at the White House

Cardinal Richelieu, founder of modern France and the nation-state system, once said, "Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I'll find something in it to hang him." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's leaked memo of last week hanged its author in far less. In fighting the war on terror, Mr. Rumsfeld is a good year behind the curve.

The Democrats and other opponents of Mr. Rumsfeld's war in Iraq leapt on this memo and tried to make political hay rather unjustly. Mr. Rumsfeld, like a great many managers (though not leaders), likes to spark discussion within his organization by asking awkward questions of his subordinates. While it is a second-rate approach by second-rate minds, it is commonplace in both American business and government. That he asked these questions is not the issue. The issue is why he did not ask many of these questions a year ago.

As the Pentagon and the World Trade Center burned into the night of September 11-12, 2001, Mr. Rumsfeld is on record as demanding that America strike back -- not only against Afghanistan where Al-Qaeda was based, but also against Iraq, where it had no significant presence. What he did not do, as the memo in question suggests, is undertake at that time the necessary assessment of American military, intelligence, economic, financial, diplomatic and political capacities. If, today, he wonders if the Pentagon is capable of adapting to this new style of warfare, he has been negligent for at least a year, and possible for the past two years.

His muddled thinking suggests that he is only now getting down to the thinking he should have done long ago. "The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions," he claims. Indeed, the west will have to spend billions, but out of an income in the trillions, it means little given the benefits. The terrorists will have to spend millions, which is everything they have.

Reports have it that Mr. Bush is quite angry over this, and some analysts have suggested that Mr. Rumsfeld will not be invited back in a second Bush administration. What will not happen, because it would mean admitting that the White House has been wrong for over a year, is the dismissal of Mr. Rumsfeld. Yet, what could be more appropriate for a man who hasn't done his job right?

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