One of the Defense Secretary's infamous "Rummygrams" has surfaced in the press, giving us a glimpse of the anxieties hidden behind the arrogant bonhommie of his Pentagon press briefings:
Rumsfeld Raises Key Questions About War on Terror
The Pentagon and White House on Wednesday defended a private memorandum from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to top defense officials questioning progress in the war on terrorism and warning that the United States faced "a long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan.Sharply diverging from more upbeat public comments, Rumsfeld wrote that it was not possible to transform the Defense Department quickly enough to effectively fight the anti-terrorism war...
"My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?" Rumsfeld wrote, referring to the war on terrorism.
There's a self-serving -- if not self-pitying -- spin to this: Rumsfeld seems to be suggesting, or at least hinting, that America's "victories" in Iraq and Afghanistan would not have gone so badly off track if the military dinosaurs hadn't obstructed his beloved "transformation."
What's really facinating, though, is watching Rummy grapple with the realities of what the military eggheads call "4th generation warfare" -- a conflict with no front lines, no orders of battle, no trenches to bombard, no cities to capture.
Above all, Rumsfeld cries out for "metrics" that can be used to measure progress in such a war:
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," he wrote. "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
This quote gives us a vivid picture of Rumsfeld trying to shoehorn the "war against terrorism" into the kind of conceptual framework an ex-pharmaceutical company CEO can be comfortable with.
Above all, Rumsfeld wants -- needs -- to be able to quantify the conflict, reducing an elusive struggle between competing ideologies into hard data sets: like the number of terrorists killed, captured or "dissuaded" versus the number of new terrorists being "deployed" by fundamentalist clerics.
I've already noted the similarity between Rumsfeld and his Vietnam War predecessor, Robert McNamara. But this memo almost makes them seem like one and the same person:
"The U.S. is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions."
McNamara was also an ex-CEO (Ford Motor Co.) who placed great faith in modern management techniques -- with which he also hoped to "transform" the Pentagon. His passion for numbers was legendary. In one of his books, David Halberstam tells the story of Bob McNamara sitting through a long presentation on defense procurement, several hundred slides worth, and then, at the very end, commenting that there was a math error on slide 87 (or whatever). Sure enough, they go back and there really was a math error on slide 87. This kind of behavior eventually spawned a joke, in which the letters IBM were said to stand for "I, Bob McNamara."
And yet, after a few years of matching wits with Ho Chi Minh, the same Bob McNamara was reduced to proposing -- with utter seriousness -- that the United States build an electrified barb wire fence across the entire DMZ between North and South Vietnam.
The same mindset also spawned McNamara's preferred metric: the infamous "body count." In that earlier, more naive, era, it hadn't yet occurred to management theorists that numeric targets can quickly become bureaucratic substitutes for real objectives, such as winning wars. So McNamara (and the military) had to learn it the hard way, as industrious field officers dispatched soldiers to count graves in Vietnamese civilian cemetaries in order to hit their weekly numbers.
I'm not sure what the equivalent might be today, although Rumsfeld's memo points in a possible direction when it suggests the creation of a private foundation that could fund "moderate" madrassas (Islamic schools) to counteract the radical ones. Perhaps someday we'll have a "moderate student count," in which hard-pressed CIA officers dispatch agents to count child laborers in Pakistani sweat shops in order to hit their weekly numbers.
You could say this represents progress, of a sort -- at least when compared to the earlier "flypaper" theory, in which victory could be achieved by luring all the terrorists to Iraq, there to be slaughtered by the U.S. Army. Rumsfeld at least seems to understand that the supply of terrorists is not fixed, and that dissuasion as well as extermination might be required to reduce their ranks.
Unfortunately, like the president he serves, Rumsfeld isn't ready to follow logic to its, well, logical, conclusion. If he was, he would realize that Gen. Boykin's recent discourse on Islamic "idols" just handed the terrorists a victory every bit as damaging as anything that could happen on a battlefield. Ditto the GIs in Baghdad who set their sniffer dogs to work on the Holy Koran, or the soldiers who fire wildly at Iraqi civilians, or the Army officials who refuse to investigate those deaths properly.
These defeats are impossible to quantify -- unless the polls showing hatred of America soaring to unprecedented levels thoughout the Islamic world can be considered quantitative evidence. But the recruits and the popular support they produce -- for Al Qaeda, the Sunni guerrillas or Muqtada al-Sadr's Sh'ia militants -- are real enough.
If Rumsfeld needs a metric for that, I suggest he count the rising total of dead and wounded Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, and think about how much higher that toll could go if a popular insurrection or fundamentalist coup in Pakistan finally allowed the terrorists to get their hands on real weapons of mass destruction.
I thought victory was achieved when you stopped motivating people to become terrorists, not how fast you could kill them before they're replaced. Jesus. Long-term it don't seem so wise an appproach.
This transformation stuff is the purest fantasy in projected scenarios. If we had light infranty with few machines we'd have a lot more fighters. Boots on the ground we could train in basic languages and to be a real American presence in the theatre.
Our GI's are trapped in their machines in Iraq. A shocking percentage of them are not fighters at all, they're logistical technicians for that mountain of iron they lug around. Yet Rummy envisions a future where there are less men and more sophisticated machines. Lighter, faster forces with better lethality and fewer men.
Hope he doesn't plan to wage any more national wars, then. It takes men for occupation and political "transformation," if you really think such a thing is possible.
"Using deductive reasoning and geometric logic, I would have found the missing strawberries - if it wasn't for the disloyalty of my senior officers."
- Captain Queeg (paraphrased)
In one of his books, David Halberstam tells the story of Bob McNamara sitting through a long presentation on defense procurement, several hundred slides worth, and then, at the very end, commenting that there was a math error on slide 87 (or whatever). Sure enough, they go back and there really was a math error on slide 87.
I say this without a trace of intentional irony: I'm surprised and gladdened to see that Robert McNamara had at least one good quality. But then I have the soul of a copyeditor.
McNamara's work for the Air Force in WWII was nothing short of brilliant. He was one of a group who made sure that each new pilot had an aircraft, mechanics, spare parts, fuel, bombs and bullets, everything. This meant coordinating factory production, training, base construction, and so on. It was all about numbers.
Once he got to be the big man, the numbers failed him. In part, people cooked their numbers to make the boss happy. In part, not all competant observers were able to put their observations in a numerical format. Also, some things are just hard to quantify.
who placed great faith in modern management techniques
You want modern management techniques? Look no further than this little nugget from the memo:
"Is our current situation such that 'the harder we work, the behinder we get'?" Gee, Rummy, I think that's work smarter, not harder if I'm not mistaken. Good grief. That's bad Dilbert.
I like how he just asks questions, and doesn't take a firm stance about any of it.
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that things are FUBAR, Mr. President. I guess I can see how you could draw that conclusion, but of course you would be wrong.
The word "flailing" comes to mind.
On NPR this morning they interviewed a reporter in Iraq. The reporter was trying to present the "things are better" argument. The reporter was relaying what a US Government spokesman was telling them about how they need to portray how much progress has taken place in Iraq.
It sounded half way good, until the interviewer asked, "How long was the spokesman in Iraq before he said things were better?"
The answer; "24 hours. Most of the officials who come here don’t stay in the country. They stay in Kuwait."
I think that about sums up the situation in Iraq today. The VIPs don't even spend the night in the country.
NPR
Speaking of "polls showing hatred of America soaring to unprecedented levels thoughout the Islamic world," Boy George stopped off in Indonesia today. He didn't really want to go there, but he was flying to Australia, and it was decided that flying over Indonesia when we're trying to bring them firmly into our orbit as a moderate, secular democracy (an election is scheduled for next year) would be an insult, so a trip was hastily arranged. Unfortunately, it appears that BG is so hated there, the media event had to be staged in Bali, which is inhabited almost entirely by Hindus. He ended up meeting the Indonesian president about one mile from where Air Force One was sitting at the Balinese airport:
"When Mrs. Megawati [the Indonesian president] and Mr. Bush appeared in public together, they spoke underneath a thatched-roof pagoda built between two trees. The structure was especially crafted for the occasion to give him and the Indonesian leader a Balinese atmosphere, and to television viewers it would not have been evident that the two were actually at a government-owned resort on the edge of the island's international airport."
[***]
"American officials, eager to make the most of the visit, had deliberated for days over the exact spot for the two presidents to appear, and they chose a spot so that the two presidents would have a photo-perfect backdrop: the azure blue Indian Ocean with gently cresting waves, two potted palms waving in the breeze and tubs of flowers personally designed by the staff of Ms. Megawati . . . [b]ut with the battle with terrorists continuing here, American warships patrolled waters offshore from the airport meeting place. The pilots guiding Air Force One and a nearly identical backup plane made an unusual landing here, low and fast over the water, and Mr. Bush never came in contact with the Balinese who live in this crowded city."
So this is where we are after two years of our War on Terror: The President of the United States makes a reluctant visit to country we're desperately trying to keep from turning into a hotbed of anti-American sentiment, slinks in like a frightened rabbit, surrounds himself with a heavy security presence that includes warships floating offshore (what would they have done if there'd been an incident, open fire with their big guns?), spouts a few platitudes while standing at a Potemkin village set specially constructed for the occasion, then jets off to a place where he imagines he's more popular, Australia.
Here is an earlier version of the story that puts more emphasis on the stage management aspects of the appearance. This version is credited only to Janet Perlez, David Sanger's named was added to the byline of the first one I linked to.
For a lighter note satirizing the military mind (or lack thereof) and asymmetrical warfare in general, and Rummy's memo in particular, see this entry on my diary on Kos.
He complains that "the US" isn't putting enough effort into formulating a long-range plan. Huh.
Who the fuck does he think is going to come up with this long-range plan? Me? A national referendum?
He's a senior official in the goddamn Administration. Damn, that makes me mad. What a bunch of morons.
Well,we are learnig new measurements for hubris,arrogance and incompetence-trillions!
Did you ever meet anyone who used 'metric' that way (as a noun) -- who wasn't a complete and utter dipstick?
I come from India. I've observed Pakistani politics for a long time. I can tell you that Pakistan is a terrorist time bomb waiting to explode. The population is rising, their economy is being propped up only by American aid, and the country is ruled by an unpopular dictator. It is only a matter of time before he is assassinated (almost all Pakistani army dictators were killed during their reign). The country will then go into chaos. Mark my words. When Pakistan flares up, then the real fun will start and we will have the third world war between civilizations.
[Rumsfeld] complains that "the US" isn't putting enough effort into formulating a long-range plan. Huh.
Let me waggishly suggest that Rumsfeld is preemptively organizing his defence for his hoped-for appearance in the dock at the Hague: he's such an imbecile that he doesn't even realize that he's part of the United States government.
More seriously, I draw your attention to the parallelism in the sentence you quote:
The U. S. is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists.
The rhetorical effect is clear: "we" are doing our job, but those guys over there, the "U. S.", aren't doing theirs. I think this speaks to the schizophrenic attitude of the Republicans towards the U. S. government in general: even when they're controlling it they treat it as some malignant alien force.
American officials, eager to make the most of the visit, had deliberated for days over the exact spot for the two presidents to appear, and they chose a spot so that the two presidents would have a photo-perfect backdrop:
It seems like that's about all these guys know how to do -- arrange photo-perfect backdrops. That and grease their campaign contributors.
The real tragedy, though, is that that seem to be about all it seems to take to stay in power in this country.
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror,"
"Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
Time and time again I'm stumped at the mind-boggling, seemingly limitless stupidity and ignorance these overgrown pencil-pushers ("Sesselfurzer") put on display. Quotes like these present irrefutible proof that each and every member of the inner circle at "BushCo" lacks even the most basic intellectual capacity to recognize, comprehend or even develop anything resembling a long-term strategy. In essence, the presidency of Dubya was pretty much characterized by the entire crew stumbling from one home-grown desaster into the next one - always armed with an extra large pack of Band-Aids and some loud-mouthed PR lackey.
And in the case of their biggest blunder yet - the "liberation" of the "poor Irakee" people - they literally find themselves standing in front of a dam that is about to burst - and again, all they brought is the extra large pack of Band-Aids.
Ever since the election in 2000, I've maintained that tiny but ever increasing glimmer of hope - that the inherent tendency of any Wingnut to micromanage everything which would normally require farsight, perspective and the ability to compromise into utter failure will ultimetely be their undoing. That in attempting to create their "America for the 21st century" they will get lost in the only things they are able to fathom - irrelevant, pointless details that never produce any tangible results.
In order for Rumsfeld, who was obviously born into "tunnelvision", to win his version of the "war on terrorism", he has exactly one option - multiple genocide, the eradication of everything Islam. Thoughout history, every religious group (especially "us" Christians) has always spawned a smaller group of extremists and it seems a bit odd that everyone but Rummy and his buddies has realized that capturing and killing terrorists does little more than further radicalize a group of folks that are already quite angry.
Actually, it is quite amusing to see that he really believes his "war" can be won as long as everybody buys into and follows his "grand" vision. But as always in life, the perception of "grand" is highly dependant on one's own perspective - one guy's "grand" is the other guy's "little". Or as my mom usually describes cases like this: "They keep trying to piss with the big dogs when they can't lift their leg with the little ones." If that's not wisdom, I don't know what is.
holy crap - that is some messed up spelling in my post above - apologies. note to self:
**no more posting after 3:30am**
I'm curious who leaked this memo. Has to be the generals, no?
Slightly off-topic, but we're planning to arrest the cleric Sadr for his involvement in the murder of the CIA asset al-Khoei 6 months ago. Oh, and also because Sadr's not "containable," according to our Iraqi Governing Council. The warrant was signed by a former Mukhabarat officer.
As Jack Lemmon would say, the ommelette is about to hit the fan.
Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?
Of course he leaves out all the terrorists he is creating with his Iraqi misadventure.
In the memo he also requests his own private army:
It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.
Vin says I'm curious who leaked this memo. Has to be the generals, no?
Or he could have arranged it himself. This memoe throws the entire blame away from himself and onto the generals.
I'm curious who leaked this memo. Has to be the generals, no?
It wasn't leaked, it was released. Otherwise, why would it be on a DoD website?
from Rummy's memo:
"Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists?"
and the last sentence:
"Please be prepared to discuss this at our meeting on Saturday or Monday ."
don't forget your homework kids - i'll be checking. priceless.
Listened to NPR this afternoon. Nearly all of the comentary was positive regarding the memo. Nobody noticed that Rummy admitted that there was no long term plan to deal with global terrorism. There just seemed to be relief that somebody in the administration was actually concerned about where our policy was headed. Not that anything he said was particularly helpful or insightful or anything like that. It was just good that somebody was thinking. Talk about lowered expectations.
Has anyone noticed that NPR has gone over to the Dark Side.
Can someone explain to me the difference in substance and method between these men and the Nazi war criminal of yester-year? Substitute Jew with Viet-Cong or Baathist. Now tell me how to tell them apart.
On the NewsHour Rumsfeld’s clip about counting the number of terrorists brought the young Bob McNamara back to life. By focusing on metrics Rumsfeld indicates that DOD has again gotten itself into a war of attrition.
The statement “a long, hard slog” sure contradicts the Karl Rove’s Iraqi feel good propaganda from last week. This memo validates the impression that all is not going well. Also, along with the Washington Post’s leaker stating that Valerie Plame was outed for revenge this memo shows that open conflict has broken out within the Bush II Administration.
The memo is a slight pull back from the concept that the War on Terrorism is a War on Islam. “Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection, and confidence in the US?”. The problem is the President still looks at the war in religious terms, fighting evil. As long as the White House casts the War on Terror as a War on Evil, it remains a Holy War. The US cannot win a Jihad with 1.3 billion Muslims.
Yet, Rumsfeld avoids the most basic question of his generals. What is victory in the Global War on Terror? How does the US achieve this victory?
Growth Factor -- NPR relies heavily on corporate funding, thanks to continual cuts in the public broadcasting budget under former administrations. Check out NPR's sponsors sometime at transnationale.org -- not pretty. Their Iraq coverage in the early stages of the occupation was just disgusting.
Jim S, it's simply not true that the Resident sees the war in religious terms. He said so in Bali!
In the corporate world that memo would look like it's more about "CYA" than "Metrics". I don't think Rummy gives a damb about metrics. Every other press conference he's saying "it's impossible to quantify" how many Iraqi civilians were killed and "unknowable" how long the US will be in Iraq. The master of evasion, like Houdini.
Then he thinks he's going to turn the US Army all into Power Rangers. Which is great for fighting terrorism in small covert operations, but not for occupying a whole country. The Power Rangers would suck at that.
Rumsfeld on Iraq: Some Answers 'Unknowable'
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2003 -- The Defense Department cannot answer how much a war on Iraq might cost or how many troops it would take to pacify the country afterward, because the answers are "unknowable," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today.
It's simple: we win once we "rid the world of evil" per Shrub. Would that he started with himself.
Osama's pulled the ultimate rope-a-dope, and there we are - big dumb US flailing away, creating "terrorists" faster than we can mow 'em down, becoming more like Israel every day.
One oddity. The memo claims "The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' cost of millions."
However, this is an obvious error by Rumsfeld. This is actually a reference to the offense-defense interaction, not the cost-benefit per se. Rumsfeld is doing the kind of math that has always precluded deployment of missile defenses. Offensive missiles are much cheaper and are more effective than the defensive ones.
In this case, defending against terror is more costly than terror.
However, that doesn't mean the cost-benefit ratio is against the defense.
The cost-benefit calculation, obviously, must include the expense of fighting terror and weigh that versus the gain from preventing terrorist acts. How much did the Trade Center attack cost? How many future Trade Centers have been prevented?
Rumsfeld argues, however, that it is quite difficult to measure success in the war on terror. I guess that means the Pentagon doesn't have an answer to the question. In the Memo, Rumsfeld says, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror."
I'm confident that McNamara would have had some of the "whiz kids" hypothesize some numbers to use in the equations.
fareed zakaria is calling for boykin's removal, and although he's been taken to task, all it's amounted to is a slap on the wrist.
Rumsfeld says, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror."
How about a ledger with columns of "feathers in my cap" and "black eyes," like the one Colonel Cathcart kept in "Catch 22?"
It's simple. An enforced search of a Muslim carrying a Koran by sniffer dogs is a "black eye." So is a civilian casualty. So is a US military casualty.
Successfully turning security details over to Iraqi police is a "feather." Unless of course you turn around and shoot them.
I heard NPR too. It sucked.
That's what happens when you accept corporate money. That's why I listen to pacifica radio (www.kpfk.org). I can't stand NPR anymore. It's radio for the latte liberal who talks left and walks right.
Disgusting.
It wasn't leaked, it was released. Otherwise, why would it be on a DoD website?
Actually, I think it WAS leaked, then the Pentagon posted it after it got played in the press -- probably figuring that it was better to have the whole thing out there than the selective, and presumably juciest, quotes used by the media.
Which was the smart play -- smarter than I would have expected.
How about a ledger with columns of "feathers in my cap" and "black eyes," like the one Colonel Cathcart kept in "Catch 22?"
Oh that is GOOD -- I may have to steal it.
Maybe they should sneak out in the middle of the night and move the bomb line on the map. That might help.
I'm surprised no one has noted a major feature of that memo: Rumsfeld touching on the irrelevance of the Iraq war to the war on Terrorism.
It's almost (almost!) as if he's saying to himself "Indeed, what are we doing in Baghdad if we are going after Al-Qaeda?... Note to self:think about it."
Rumsfeld says, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror."
Your text suggets a good measure of how we are doing on the war on terror - how much is the US hated in the islamic world. If the percentage who say they hate us is going down then we are making progress, if it goes up we are losing. When the "Hate Index" reaches say 5% then we know we have won.
Before they establish "metrics" to see if we are "winning" a war on terror, first they have to find out exactly who is killing our troops in Iraq.
Are they die-hard Baathists? Al-Queda recruits? Afghan ex-Talibans?
From the memo, it doesn't seem like anyone in the Pentagon has a clue.
Rumsfeld has finally caught up with Rudyard Kipling:
Arithmetic on the Frontier
Rudyard Kipling
---------------------
A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—
The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”
Are cheap—alas! as we are dear.
Rumsfeld at least seems to understand that the supply of terrorists is not fixed, and that dissuasion as well as extermination might be required to reduce their ranks.
In contrast, at this point there is a limited supply of Coalition troops. So regardless of inaccuracies in the casualty figures, in a war of attrition the winner is..