Rummy and the Leak

The big news out of the weekend was a leaked Rumsfeld memo (written right before the election-- and his resignation/firing) to the NY Times. This, of course, follows last week's leak of a White House memo expressing concern over the Iraqi prime minister. The memo shows a Rumsfeld genuinely concerned about the state of the war and making a number of suggestions that conservatives would have labeled "defeatist" just weeks ago! These revelations prove that, not only is a broken clock right twice a day, but also that George W. Bush may be the last person on Earth who has faith in his strategy for the war (or, rather, absence of strategy).

NY Times: Rumsfeld Memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment’ in Iraq

Two days before he resigned as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld submitted a classified memo to the White House that acknowledged that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq was not working and called for a major course correction.

In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” wrote Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a symbol of a dogged stay-the-course policy. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

Nor did Mr. Rumsfeld seem confident that the administration would readily develop an effective alternative. To limit the political fallout from shifting course, he suggested the administration consider a campaign to lower public expectations.

"Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis," he wrote. "This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’"

“Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist,” he added. The memo suggests frustration with the pace of turning over responsibility to the Iraqi authorities; in fact, the memo calls for examination of ideas that roughly parallel troop withdrawal proposals presented by some of the White House’s sharpest Democratic critics....

Text of the memo- here.

As I noted at the beginning, many of the proposals that Rumsfeld makes in this memo (troop withdrawals, redeploying some forces to border areas, closing down U.S. bases in Iraq throughout 2007, setting up timetables to force Iraqi gov't to respond, etc) are the same-- but less bold-- than those that have been proposed by Democrats for over a year and have dismissed by conservatives (like, say, Donald Rumsfeld) as "defeatist" and "cut and run". If anything good comes out of this leak, it may be that those on the right will have to stop discussing the war in such insane, black and white terms.

But lest we forget his true nature, here's some vintage Rummy in the memo-

The memorandum sometimes has a finger-wagging tone, as Mr. Rumsfeld says that the Iraqis must “pull up their socks,” and suggests that reconstruction aid should be withheld in violent areas to avoid rewarding “bad behavior.”

Bad Iraqis! No reconstruction for you!!! The military contractors will just have to pocket that money instead!

The memo leak had the White House on the defensive. "We have not failed in Iraq," Stephen Hadley said. Of course not, Stephen. You haven't all-out failed because the war is still ongoing... right now you are merely failing. When this war is over, then you will have failed.

Hadley reiterated, though, they wouldn't rule out any suggestions... if made by Republicans.

Another question is who leaked this memo. Andrew Sullivan wonders if the leaker was Rumsfeld himself, as revenge for his ousting. Or maybe he just doesn't want to be the scapegoat (for the war that was his idea).

Another possibility would be close Rumsfeld ally at the Department of Defense, Stephen Cambone, who just resigned this past Friday. Cambone may be best known for his notes from a meeting Rumsfeld held on the afternoon of 9/11. The notes showed Rumsfeld instructing his crew to try to tie 9/11 to Iraq. "Go massive... Sweep it all up. Things related and not," Rummy instructed. Among other instructions Cambone wrote down in these notes were to "get info fast" to "judge whether [we can] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] at the same time" and "not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]". And the rest is history.

On a related note, I wonder if we'll hear the rabid cries for criminal investigations from the right we have heard surrounding previous Times stories from leaks. Michelle Malkin, as always, can be counted on for hysteria, stating that the Times "splashed it all over its front page for all the world and America's enemies to read." Yes, now that our enemies know that some degree of intelligent debate and disagreement has been occuring within the famously sheltered, stubborn White House, they will conquer the world in no time. Perhaps threats of criminal investigations are only reserved for stories that reveal criminal/unconstitutional actions by the White House.

Finally, Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall notes that if the 2006 election was supposed to be an intervention for the President, it has been a failed one thus far. "And this is the guy running the country?", Marshall asks. A frightening and sobering thought.