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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
More America-hating, Saddam-loving bad news from Iraq.....
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioned whether the United States was doing enough to win the war on terrorism, citing “mixed results” in the fight against al-Qaida in a pointed memo to top Pentagon officials last week.
RUMSFELD SAID the U.S.-led coalitions would win in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not without “a long, hard slog.” He wrote that the United States “has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis” but has made “somewhat slower progress” tracking down top Taliban leaders who sheltered al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
The memo, dated Oct. 16 and first reported by USA Today on Wednesday, offered a much more stark assessment of the global war on terrorism than contained in Rumsfeld’s public statements.
"Slog"....quagmire.... no light at the end of the tunnel... Whatever....
Meanwhile:
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, confirmed on Wednesday an increase in the number of attacks on American troops. His comments came hours after American troops came under new attacks in the center of Baghdad and in the tense Sunni Muslim area west of the capital.
SANCHEZ TOLD REPORTERS that the average of 20-25 attacks daily had increased over the last three weeks “to a peak of 35 attacks a day.” He did not elaborate.
No comment yet from President Bring 'em on....
(Added): Oh Jeebus...first spin of the day:
Perhaps it's time the Pentagon hang a few of those old World War II posters in the hallways--"Loose Lips Sink Ships." Someone within that august building needs to understand that the Secretary of Defense needs to ask hard questions of his subordinates, and that he should be able to do so beyond the glare of a hostile and not at all supportive media and political opposition. That lack of basic opsec has placed a confidential memo from SecDef Rumsfeld to his immediate subordinates, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, into the hands of people who wish them ill, and into the hands of our enemy. Now, because some anonymous leaker wanted to score a hit on his or her boss, there will probably be another mini-scandal about nothing, another anti-war feeding frenzy, and we'll take another dent in the effort to win the war.
Here's the Rumsfeld memo. The press seems to be spinning it, and the Dems are of course spinning it too, as a direct refutation of all the Bush administration's positive public statements on the progress of the war. It is no such thing. It's a strategic document, written to force its small circle of recipients to think about a finite set of circumstances within the larger context of the war, and to justify their positions on the US progress or lack thereof with respect to those circumstances. It is the kind of memo a leader writes to his subordinates when he wants them to maintain focus and think about broad ways to win the war in the long term.
You see, on the first hand the memo is bad because it is damaging to Rumsfeld and the war he is conducting, loose lips sinking the Bushco PR effort and all that. On the other hand it is a sign of his brilliance and amazing adaptability and his leadership, although apparently he's not a good enough leader to manage to keep his people in line and loyal.
Next step: an Aha! we've got them right where we want them moment where someone points out that this is a good sign that Rumsfeld is engaged and on the job and those wily Islamo-facists are on the run now, oh boy, and that the increase in attacks is a sign of their desperation and aren't we lucky to have a leader like Rummy leading....
Extra credit given for the first one to use either the expression "Rumsfeld is thinking outside the box" or "the Rumsfeld Doctrine".
By the way, swap out a few words in this comment:
It's a strategic document, written to force its small circle of recipients to think about a finite set of circumstances within the larger context of the war, and to justify their positions on the US progress or lack thereof with respect to those circumstances. It is the kind of memo a leader writes to his subordinates when he wants them to maintain focus and think about broad ways to win the war in the long term
...and it sounds like every bad memo from an outside business consultant ever written. Too bad, he couldn't find a place to use "paradigm"....
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