🚀 go-pugleaf

By THOMAS M. DeFRANK and RICHARD SISK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, 
October 23rd, 2003

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld angered the White House 
yesterday with a leaked memo questioning whether the U.S. was winning
the 
war on terror.

"This has put Rummy in a bad spot," one Bush administration source said.

"Before this he had personality and policy problems," the source said.
"Now 
he has a credibility problem because he's acknowledged that they've all
been 
putting on a happy face about Iraq."

It was the latest blow for the beleaguered defense secretary. Earlier
this 
month, the White House switched responsibility for rebuilding Iraq from 
Rumsfeld to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

"The President isn't happy," but he won't fire Rumsfeld, a Bush official 
said.

Officials said sacking Rumsfeld would give the appearance of admitting
that 
Iraq is as big a mess as his critics contend.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, traveling with Bush in 
Australia, quickly gave a vote of confidence to Rumsfeld. "That's
exactly 
what a strong and capable secretary of defense like Secretary Rumsfeld 
should be doing," said McClellan.

The Oct. 16 Rumsfeld memo to top Pentagon aides, first disclosed by USA 
Today, warned of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and openly 
questioned whether the military can win the global terror war.

He complained about "mixed results" on Al Qaeda and fretted that
terrorism 
was winning recruits faster than the U.S. could kill or capture them.

Rumsfeld also wondered if the Pentagon was capable of beating the
terrorists 
and pressed aides to consider whether "to fashion a new institution" to
take 
over the terror war from the military.

Bush officials told the Daily News the memo has further diminished 
Rumsfeld's standing at the White House by embarrassing Bush when his
Iraq 
policy is under constant attack by Democrats and even some Republicans.

The News reported on Oct. 10 that Bush is unhappy with Rumsfeld's
handling 
of postwar operations in Iraq and that he will be out of a job if Bush
is 
reelected next November.

While the source of the leak was a prime topic in Washington political 
corridors yesterday, there was a broad consensus that the leaker was no 
friend of the embattled defense secretary.

"Rumsfeld has stepped on many toes at the Pentagon," a senior
congressional 
source said, "and this was the revenge of the toes."

Rumsfeld and his top aides defended the memo as the typical internal
work 
product of a hard-charging executive posing tough questions and pressing
his 
staff to think aggressively and make tough choices.

Rumsfeld said he used the memo to urge his aides to "lift our eyes up
and 
look out over the horizon. I do it periodically."

But the pessimistic tone of the memo contrasted with the drumbeat of 
positive statements from the White House and Pentagon on steady progress
in 
Iraq that allegedly has been overlooked by the body-count reporting of
the 
major media.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations 
Committee, said the memo "is a little different than the sort of 
self-assurance that was communicated to us in Congress."


-- 


"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would 
instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab 
world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-
day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless 
hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning 
them to fight in what would be an unwinable urban guerilla 
war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever 
greater instability."
-George H. W. Bush in his 1998 book  "A World Transformed"

"There should be limits to freedom."--George W. Bush

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation
building."--George W. Bush, 10/11/2000


http://minime.de/bush/
http://www.911pi.com/
http://www.warprofiteers.com/
http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
http://www.mindprod.com/bush911.html