Rumsfeld to Change Pentagon’s Policy Org Chart

Secretary of Defense, Field Marshal Donald von Rumsfeld, wants to reorganize the Pentagon’s deck chairs for the first time since 1993. He believes that the existing structure was misaligned. He now wants a fifth assistant secretary to “oversee policy areas that cut across regional lines, such as security cooperation, partnership building, technology security policy and detainee affairs,” according to the Washington Post A better solution is to give control of US foreign policy back to the State Department.

The incompetence of the field marshal has been on display since before the attack on Iraq, especially his demand that insufficient troops take part. His rationale was that fewer troops would be needed to hold a nation than defeat an army. Any reading of history shows that defeating an army only requires a battlefield to be held. Occupying a nation is a harder matter requiring more resources.

Now, though, he is belatedly restructuring his department after almost 6 years of running it and discovering it wasn’t working. After the Al Qaeda murders would have been a much more appropriate time. He asserted that this would be a different war, and he promptly tried to fight it with the old structure.

Alternatively, this move has nothing to do with the actual war and more to do with consolidating the Pentagon’s hold over US foreign policy. Eric Edleman, undersecretary of defense for policy, told the media that there had been some friction among the Pentagon, State and other federal bodies during the run up to the Iraq war, but things were much better now. The fifth assistant would merely improve the current era of good feelings by ensuring that the Pentagon could over-ride other interests with a designated hitter.

When the only tool in one’s kit is a hammer, all problems look like nails. When the Pentagon is the chief influence in US foreign policy, every crisis calls for military intervention (or at least arms sales and training). The State Department has been labeled as the jerks in striped trousers for years, the eggheads who prefer the interests of foreigners to those of the US. Defense has called the shots from Vietnam to Iraq, and it’s time to give foreign policy back to the people who know what they’re doing. Since this reorganization requires Congressional approval, here’s hoping the legislature can stop this. If the field marshal truly wanted to make things better, he could resign.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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