Leaked Rumsfeld Memo Intended to Incite Internal Discussion on the War on Terrorism
By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
October 23, 2003

A private memo written by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that was sent to four high ranking Pentagon officials last week was leaked to the press and published on Wednesday.

In the memo dated October 16, 2003, Rumsfeld questions the progress being made in the war on terrorism. He admits that the Pentagon has not been as effective as they should be fighting the unconventional war.

He suggested that a "new institution" that would be privately operated may need to be created to respond more quickly to the ever-changing needs in the war on terrorism.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary who was in Australia with President George W. Bush, offered strong support for Rumsfeld's memo.

"That's exactly what a strong and capable secretary of defense like Secretary Rumsfeld should be doing," McClellan said in a press conference. "The president has always said it will require thinking differently [because] it's a different type of war."

Before the memo was publicized, Rumsfeld had frequently expressed his delight with the progress in the war on terrorism that began on September 11, 2001.

Rumsfeld asked in the memo, "Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror?"

He says that although there has been much success in capturing members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and remnants of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime, he is concerned that there has been a "somewhat slower progress" on capturing the most wanted terrorists, including Hussein and al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.

"Is our current situation such that 'the harder we work, the behinder we get?'" Rumsfeld questioned in the memo.

Speaking on the costs of the war on terrorism, Rumsfeld said the United States is spending "billions" while the terrorists are only spending "millions."

Regarding the length of time U.S. troops will likely be in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld said, "It will be a long, hard slog."

The memo was addressed to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

Rumsfeld asked each of them to use the memo to brainstorm ideas regarding the war on terrorism for a meeting of the minds at a later date.

Larry DeRita, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, said the Rumsfeld memo is typical of the unique style the Secretary has communicating his message throughout the department.

"It's a constant sense of urgency," DeRita responded to reporters regarding the Rumsfeld memo. "It's what he does. He injects urgency, he asks questions and he gets people thinking about things and that's what this memo hopefully will do."

Rumsfeld says that he likes to send memos like this one often in order to provoke thought and provide feedback on the most important issues.

"The reason I write those things is -- and ask questions -- is because I find it a useful thing to do," Rumsfeld told reporters. "The department's a big institution with a lot of people, and to operate, it needs to get into a rhythm and go along in a regularized way."

However, the contents of the memo were never meant to be seen by the civilian population. Fox News reports that Rumsfeld was "livid" when he saw the memo he sent printed on the front page of USA Today.

"It boggles my mind how a memo to four people ends up on the front page of a newspaper," a Defense Department official told Fox News.

Rumsfeld explained in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon that the memo was only meant to incite discussion from the four recipients regarding the war on terrorism and not necessarily provide his personal opinions about its progress to the media.

Attempting to diffuse the media attention given to his internal memo, Rumsfeld pretended he was a reporter at a news conference.

"I asked questions, I didn't answer questions," Rumsfeld stated to reporters. "I am a question asker, I should be sitting where you're sitting."

Myers agreed that the memo was written to help members of the Defense Department respond better to the challenges in the war on terrorism.

"The experts will tell you that if you talk to somebody about change or transformation of anything, they will tell you that the larger an organization and the older an organization, the more difficult it is to change it, and it's not going to happen unless you have a CEO bought into the need for change," Myers told reporters.

"So, what you're seeing in this memo, the way we do business, is that our boss is challenging us with a lot of questions on are we changing ourselves to deal with this 21st century threat environment we find ourselves in," Myers added.

After meeting with several U.S. senators on Wednesday evening, Rumsfeld expressed a little more anger about the private memo being released to the press.

"If I wanted it published, I would have written it as a press release, which I didn't," he said in the impromptu press conference.

A Defense Department official revealed that the source of the leaked memo may have been when a staff member of one of the four memo recipients photocopied it to distribute to others to assist them with brainstorming ideas.

As expected, the Democrats are having a field day with the comments found in the Rumsfeld memo.

Democrat presidential candidate retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark blamed Bush for not having a clear plan to fight the war on terrorism.

"Secretary Rumsfeld is only now acknowledging what we've known for some time -- that this administration has no plan for Iraq and no long-term strategy for fighting terrorism," he told the Associated Press.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), who is the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Rumsfeld is now second-guessing the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism.

"I'm not suggesting there's a change in direction but there's a little self-doubt setting in," Biden stated.

He added that the Rumsfeld memo reveals "the first bit of introspection that I've even whiffed coming out of the Defense Department."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) said the memo proves that the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism has been a failure.

"I think Secretary Rumsfeld's comments are an illustration of the concern that they have about the failures of their policy in Iraq so far," he told the Associated Press. "They acknowledge they have not succeeded to date."

Rumsfeld responded to Daschle's narrow interpretation of the memo by stating that he is most concerned with the children who are being groomed by terrorist nations to become suicide bombers and international terrorists.

"How many young people are being taught to go out as suicide bombers and to kill people, that's the question," Rumsfeld asked reporters. "How many are there, and how does that inflow of terrorists in the world get reduced so that the number of people getting captured or killed is greater than the ones being produced?"

"There isn't anyone who knows a metric to that," Rumsfeld added, "But elevating that issue I think forces people to think about it in the broadest possible context, which is why I did so [in the memo]."