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| Originally Aired: October 2, 2006 |
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Defense Analysts Debate Whether Secretary Rumsfeld Should Go |
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| Bob Woodward's new book "State of Denial" presents the struggle between the military and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over decisions made in the Iraq war. Analysts debate whether Rumsfeld should remain at his post. |
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RAY SUAREZ: Appearing on three Sunday morning news programs, the president's top communications aide, Dan Bartlett, dismissed renewed calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. DAN BARTLETT, Top White House Communications Aide: We recognize that he has his critics. We recognize that he's made some very difficult decisions. Some people don't like his bedside manner. But what President Bush looks to in Secretary Rumsfeld is to bring him the type of information he needs to make the right decisions in this war. RAY SUAREZ: The latest criticism comes following the release of Bob Woodward's third book about the administration at war, called "State of Denial." It depicts disagreements among the president's top advisers about dealing with post-war Iraq and the man running the war, Donald Rumsfeld. The book also suggests top military commanders executing the war in Iraq were repeatedly frustrated with Rumsfeld's leadership at the Pentagon. The secretary, who was traveling over the weekend, said the president had in recent days reached him by phone to express his continued support. TONY SNOW, White House Press Secretary: I think what the president simply wanted to do is, given all the press attention and everything that's been going on, to say, "Don, I still have faith in you, and I support you." RAY SUAREZ: In the book, Woodward writes that former Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to persuade Mr. Bush to fire Rumsfeld on two separate occasions. "Card outlined his problems with Rumsfeld and how he believed it was time for a change. He said, however, so far his advice on the Rumsfeld situation had been considered and rejected." Card hasn't denied that he discussed replacing Rumsfeld with the president but said Woodward's book takes the discussion out of context. Just last month, a group of retired generals called for Rumsfeld to step aside at a forum put together by Senate Democrats. MAJ. GEN. JOHN BATISTE (Ret.), U.S. Army: Our nation's treasure in blood and dollars continues to be squandered under Secretary Rumsfeld's leadership. Losing one American life due to incompetent war-planning and preparation is absolutely unacceptable. RAY SUAREZ: Rumsfeld has acknowledged he offered his resignation to the president twice, but Mr. Bush refused to accept it. |
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Rating as a manager
RAY SUAREZ: Well, General Fogleman, he's about to become,
Secretary Rumsfeld, the longest serving secretary of defense in history.
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: Yes.
RAY SUAREZ: Would you say, over the five and a half years,
that he's been good at that, been good at being secretary of defense, and
taking into account what you just heard Lawrence Korb say?
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: Well, I would disagree with what Larry
said, but the fact of the matter is he has been a very strong secretary of
defense. That should not surprise anybody.
We had some legislation in late 1980s, Goldwater-Nichols
legislation, that was eventually going to drive us to this kind of situation. And
we're, I think, seeing that.
If you look at the agenda that he set out on before 9/11,
one of the big issues was trying to transform the military. And I can tell you:
I was inside that process, and it badly needed transformation, in many, many
different ways.
He has, I think, continued to try and do that as he has
prosecuted two wars, one in Afghanistan,
one in Iraq.
I think that he has served the president well. And you hear these issues with
senior officers. Senior officers are not used to having their egos bruised.
My experience with Secretary Rumsfeld is he doesn't brook
fools. But if you come to the table with a solid position, he's going to listen
and he's going to make a decision based on your input.
RAY SUAREZ: What about that?
LAWRENCE
KORB: You know, again, I would even disagree. I know he has this reputation as
the great manager.
Look at the situation with the Boeing thing, when Boeing
tried to get these tankers, you know, to the Air Force to buy them, and they
wanted to lease them, as opposed to buying them. When the inspector general,
after Senator McCain complained that this was not a good deal for the taxpayer,
Rumsfeld said he wasn't even aware of what was going on.
You look at his Quadrennial Defense Review, which is -- you
know, he puts out to say which direction that the Pentagon should go in the
next four years. That is fiscally irresponsible. He did not make any of the
hard choices in that to do the transformation and then stay within the
budgetary limits that we're supposed to have.
If you take a look -- when he came in, what they call the
number of weapons systems under production was about $800 billion. It is now
$1.6 trillion. You've had cost overruns in virtually every program there.
So, when you get this idea that he's this great manager,
that's not true either. And if you take a look at that -- take Boeing. He's
sort of like -- well, he didn't know what was going on. You didn't know this
deal that was tearing apart and forced the secretary of the Air Force actually
to resign over it, because the relationship between Boeing and the Air Force
and what Senator McCain said? So I don't even buy this, that he's this great manager. |
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Placing the responsibility
RAY SUAREZ: You just mentioned various administrative things
he did, tough assignments that he took onto himself. But do those have to sit
side-by-side with growing public view that things have gone very badly in Iraq,
in ways that this Department of Defense seemed to be unprepared for and
unwilling to admit were happening, whether it's the looting of Baghdad, whether
it's the growth of an insurgency, and our forces having to fight guerrilla
warfare, and so on?
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: Well, first of all, I think that,
while he is the secretary of defense and he's ultimately responsible for what
occurs here on the one hand, I remember very clearly that President Bush, after
9/11, said we are going to fight this war on terror with all the elements of
government, state, commerce, treasury, defense.
I was on the Defense Policy Board during that period of time
when it was the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. And I can tell you that there
was an effort made to try and engage those other elements of government. And
they were AWOL. They were missing in action. Now, there's been lots of reasons
given for why they didn't come to the table, but they did not come to the
table.
Now, here's a man who's charged with fighting two wars. He
has continued to keep the department functioning through two QDRs. He has
continued to work the transformation issue. And through all of that, he has
kept the confidence of the president of the United States.
RAY SUAREZ: So very quickly, when all these stories emerge
of inability to cooperate between government departments, you would lay more of
that on the other departments than on Secretary Rumsfeld himself?
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: That was my observation in this thing.
LAWRENCE
KORB: Again, I would disagree. If you listen to General Gardner, Jay Gardner,
who was the first man Rumsfeld put in charge of, you know, what would happen in
reconstructing Iraq, he wanted to bring people from the State Department who
had worked on this whole post-Saddam phase there, and Rumsfeld wouldn't let
them even put them...
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: I disagree with that, Larry. I mean, I
was...
LAWRENCE
KORB: Well, that's General Gardner's...
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: Jay Gardner briefed us. He came in and
briefed us. And I know of no prohibition...
LAWRENCE
KORB: Well, Rumsfeld told him that -- and, in fact, Rumsfeld said this came
from higher authority, that he wasn't allowed to bring somebody from the State
Department there.
When Ambassador Bremer took over that job there, he sent
Secretary Rumsfeld the RAND study that said
you'd need 500,000 troops there. According to Ambassador Bremer, to whom they
gave, you know, the presidential medal of freedom, Rumsfeld never even
responded.
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: That's not true.
LAWRENCE
KORB: Well, again...
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: Rumsfeld sent Bremer a note that said,
"I have received your request." He sent the request to the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs. The Joint Chiefs met and, over a period of a couple of
weeks, and came back with -- and by this time Bremer had left. It was during
his transition period.
And the Joint Chiefs came back and with the conclusion that
there were no more -- there were no troops -- no additional troops required,
not based on Joint Chief deliberation, but based on going to the guys in the
field that were out there.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, on the report card item of whether Donald
Rumsfeld works well with others, we'll have to just mark it incomplete and wait
for that story to play out. Gentlemen, thank you both.
GEN. RONALD FOGLEMAN: OK. Thank you. |
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