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Critism on rumsfeld mounts { September 14 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6695-2003Sep13.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6695-2003Sep13.html
Iraq Takes A Toll on Rumsfeld
Criticism Mounts With Costs, Casualties
By Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page A01
Since he returned to the Pentagon three years ago, Donald H. Rumsfeld has been one of the most activist secretaries of defense in a generation, challenging the uniformed brass to modernize the nation's military into a 21st century fighting force and leading the armed services through two major wars in 18 months.
Along the way, Rumsfeld has rankled many in the military with his aggressive style and far-reaching agenda for "transforming" the military, even as he has won acclaim for his leadership of the Pentagon through the trauma of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the building and ensuing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war on terrorism. Now, less than five months after he helped formulate and execute a bold plan in which a U.S. invasion force drove to Baghdad and toppled the Iraqi government in 21 days, Rumsfeld is facing his greatest challenge yet.
Having demanded full authority for overseeing the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, elbowing the State Department aside, Rumsfeld is being blamed by many in Congress and the military establishment for the problems facing the United States, which include mounting U.S. casualties and costs exceeding $1 billion a week.
Whatever else Rumsfeld achieves at the Pentagon, the outcome of the Iraq occupation will go a long way toward determining his legacy in this, his second stint as secretary of defense. It also will affect the political fortunes of President Bush, whose reelection bid could hinge on events in Iraq.
Rumsfeld's ability to weather his largest crisis will depend to a degree on his standing with three key constituencies: the White House, Congress and the military's officer corps. How he does with them will be shaped largely by whether security improves in Iraq, according to officials in the administration, Congress and the Pentagon.
At the moment, at least, Rumsfeld's standing among all three is mixed. White House officials said that Rumsfeld retains the full confidence of the president. But after a long winning streak, the Pentagon chief has begun to lose some policy battles, most notably when Bush decided to seek a new United Nations resolution on Iraq -- a course about which Rumsfeld has expressed reservations.
Rumsfeld's relations with the military have been strained since he returned to office. This is particularly true within the Army, which felt threatened by his modernization plans before the Sept. 11 attacks and where concern runs deep about the damage the Iraq occupation could do the service in the long run.
Rumsfeld appears to be losing ground most dramatically on Capitol Hill, where even some conservative Republicans are expressing concern about his handling of Iraq. "Winning the peace is a lot different than winning the war," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who counts himself as a strong Rumsfeld supporter but notes that not all his colleagues feel the same. "His bluntness comes across as arrogance, and he's made some enemies on Capitol Hill, probably because of style differences," said Graham, an Air Force veteran who serves on the Armed Services Committee.
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the panel's chairman, struck a decidedly cool note when asked how Rumsfeld is doing. "Understandably we have some differences," he said Friday in a written response. "However, I consistently work with Secretary Rumsfeld to support the president and the men and women of the armed forces, and have a high regard for his integrity and forcefulness."
'Rummy Is a Survivor'
On Capitol Hill and elsewhere, Rumsfeld's assertive self-confidence and brash style -- seared into the public's memory during televised news conferences during the Afghanistan war -- for many months seemed to fuel the secretary's popularity. Now, those same qualities strike many inside and outside of government as a vulnerability that leads them to question whether Rumsfeld has the flexibility to make the changes and compromises they see as necessary to fixing the situation in Iraq.
"Robert McNamara for four years of Vietnam going down the toilet was absolutely convinced with a religious zeal that what he was doing was the right thing," said Thomas E. White, a retired Army general who was fired as Army secretary this year by Rumsfeld. "It wasn't until 30 years later that it dawned on him that he was dead wrong. And I think you have the same thing with Don Rumsfeld."
McNamara served as secretary of defense in the 1960s under Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Most analysts said they believe it is far too early to count Rumsfeld out, and many supporters said they are convinced he will rise and prove his critics wrong once again. His backers note that the secretary continues to have a close relationship with Vice President Cheney, who worked under Rumsfeld in the Gerald Ford White House.
As a longtime aide to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Rumsfeld's principal rival in the national security arena, F. William Smullen might be expected to revel in Rumsfeld's difficulties. To the contrary, Smullen argues that it is grossly unfair to hang the problems of postwar Iraq on the defense secretary. "I think there is plenty of blame to go around, far and wide, to include Congress and the mass media, and people are going to be hard-pressed to dump it all on Rumsfeld," said Smullen, who was Powell's chief of staff until last fall, when he became director of national security studies at Syracuse University.
"Every time Rumsfeld goes through one of these episodes, people think it's the end for him," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst and consultant at the Lexington Institute with ties to the Pentagon and defense contractors. "But he always ends up looking vindicated. What we're really facing in Iraq is a mop-up operation, and as the mop-up continues and as we gradually sharpen our intelligence and train Iraqi security forces, Rumsfeld is going to look better and better. In the end, it will look like he understood the occupation of Iraq better than most of his critics did."
As one Army general put it: "Rummy is a survivor."
Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed for this article, and his spokesman declined to provide any comment.
Speaking for Bush, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said Friday, "The president ignores the Washington pastime of armchair quarterbacking with perfect hindsight. The president has all the faith and confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld that he did on the day he announced him for the position."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the difficulties of postwar Iraq have not led to a reduction in the role played by Rumsfeld and the Defense Department. "Don Rumsfeld and the Pentagon had the lead and have the lead in postwar reconstruction because . . . we wanted a way to unify the command of the forces and the civilian reconstruction effort," Rice said in an interview Friday. "It's a very, very tough job, but he's managed it well, the president believes he's done it well, and when problems have come up, he's moved to fix them."
Nor, she said, has the White House been taken aback by the cost and difficulty of the Iraq occupation. "Yes, this is really challenging, it's really challenging for all of us, and Don has got a heavy part of the burden," she said. "But everybody knows what it is we're trying to do, and everybody knows how important this is, and everybody knows this is a chance to change history."
Yet, the difficulties in Iraq have diminished Rumsfeld's standing within the administration, according to people familiar with its inner workings, with a reduction in Rumsfeld's operating latitude. Unhappiness with Rumsfeld's freewheeling style -- he has been known to interject himself in issues usually considered beyond the purview of a secretary of defense -- had been building within parts of the administration, officials said.
But it was the Pentagon's handling of postwar Iraq that really hurt Rumsfeld's position, according to some administration officials. Asked about this, a senior White House official said it was "patently false" that Rumsfeld had somehow been ordered by the White House to better coordinate his policy initiatives with other parts of the administration.
'He's Very Defensive'
Unhappiness with Rumsfeld flared on Capitol Hill months before the invasion of Iraq, when Warner stood up at a meeting of Republican senators with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and complained that Rumsfeld was neither cooperating nor consulting with the Senate. Warner told Card that he had never seen anything like it in 25 years in the Senate.
Now, with casualties in Iraq mounting and lawmakers growing agitated about the costs of occupation and reconstruction, the strains have become more pronounced, even as the administration continues to hold strong Republican support on Capitol Hill for its overall policy goals in Iraq.
Even Rumsfeld's GOP backers chafe at the way he interacts with Congress. "I think his legislative affairs shop is awful," said one Republican senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It serves him so poorly. Don Rumsfeld can't be personally blamed for all of that. But the combination of his personality, which some people find condescending and prickly and a little offensive -- Rumsfeld himself doesn't have any time for criticism -- and the fact that the groundwork hasn't been laid by a good legislative affairs staff, has created some problems."
Graham, the South Carolina Republican, said that among his colleagues, "there's some belief that he's reluctant to admit that things are off-track when they seem to be off-track. He's very defensive."
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a West Point graduate and former officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, said Rumsfeld was "critically important to a spectacular conventional military victory in Iraq." But Reed said the real question now is whether Rumsfeld is committed to reaching out to other countries "in a way that encourages allies to join us" in managing the occupation.
While the administration says it wants a U.N. resolution aimed at winning more foreign troops and money, Reed said, "The rhetoric is not matched by the body language and all the things that have to go into getting people to cooperate with you."
Others on Capitol Hill are not as pessimistic. Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), an Air Force veteran who later served on the staff of the National Security Council in George H.W. Bush's administration, said that "over the last 10 days, I've seen the administration make the changes and commitments they need to make in order to be successful in the long term."
Wilson adds that her old comrades in the Air Force tend to like Rumsfeld's direct style, a sentiment that others in Congress second. Graham said, "I find him refreshing in a stiff-collared town. . . . He's the right guy at the right time."
Likewise, said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), "I have immense regard for Don Rumsfeld and his staff."
'A Bloodletting'
Iraq has raised new doubts about Rumsfeld among some officers from the Army and Marines, the two services still operating there.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a former head of the U.S. Central Command who also served the Bush administration as Middle East envoy, sharply criticized the Pentagon's handling of postwar Iraq in a speech before the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association 10 days ago. He received an enthusiastic response from hundreds of military officers present.
In the Army, there are deep worries that the Iraq occupation could do long-term damage to the service. Of the 10 active-duty Army divisions, nine will have all or parts deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan this year or next.
"The Army is strained and stressed," Gen. John Keane, the service's number two officer, said Thursday.
The major worry, according to some in the Army, is that repeated deployments to Iraq will persuade the backbone of the service -- seasoned sergeants and younger officers -- to leave in mid-career instead of serving a full 20 years. There already is talk that some of those now serving in Iraq will come home, only to be sent back in 2005.
"The last time we had people doing combat tours every other year was Vietnam," one defense expert said. "The impact on soldiers and families was great. A lot of good junior officers and mid-grade NCOs [noncommissioned officers] walked. This decimated the rising leadership and broke the force."
The state of the Army reserves is a special worry, and the reserves are adept at conveying that concern to Congress.
"Unless there's adaptation in the reserves, there's going to be a bloodletting," with thousands of reservists declining to reenlist, said Graham, who serves as an officer in the Air Force Reserve. He said he is introducing legislation -- along with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) -- to radically improve the health benefits for reservists, and to reduce the costs to civilian employers of reservists deployed overseas.
Rumsfeld's critics acknowledge that if conditions in Iraq improve in six months -- with a constitution signed, an election plan underway, U.S. casualties drastically reduced, and thousands of troops returning home -- Rumsfeld's legacy is probably secure. But they say that he has a track record of sticking too long with incorrect assumptions about the speed of recovery and brushing aside problems such as looting. Rumsfeld has resisted adding troops to the forces in Iraq on grounds they are not needed and that more responsibility must be turned over to the Iraqis.
So if parts of Iraq are still combat zones next spring, with the Army apparently mired in a seemingly never-ending fight, then Rumsfeld may wind up remembered as a principal architect of a foreign policy disaster, according to some military experts and lawmakers.
"He is absolutely convinced that he is right, that his view is correct, so all the rest of this stuff that is floating around is kind of noise, a lot of which he just dismisses out of hand, or he rationalizes somehow as consistent with this plan of his," White said.
Robert S. Gelbard, a former U.S. diplomat with experience in several peacekeeping operations, said he is puzzled by Rumsfeld's insistence that no additional troops are needed to improve security in Iraq. "What's hard to figure out is the continued adamant statements that there's no need for additional troops," he said. "That is utterly perplexing, given the security situation there."
The view among many in the administration, Congress and military interviewed for this article was that Iraq likely would simmer down in the coming months and that security conditions would improve, in part, they said, because of the extraordinary efforts by the 122,000 troops deployed there.
"I suspect he will be saved by the strong backs and the creativity of the Army soldiers in Iraq," one White House aide said. "And that's an incredible irony."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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