The Real Donald Rumsfeld

Here’s a piece in the St Paul Pioneer Press written by Douglas J. Feith who served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005.

Those of us in his inner circle heard him say, over and over again: Our intelligence, in all senses of the term, is limited. We cannot predict the future. We must continually question our preconceptions and theories. If events contradict them, don’t suppress the bad news; rather, change your preconceptions and theories.
If an ideologue is someone to whom the facts don’t matter, then Rumsfeld is the opposite of an ideologue. He insists that briefings for him be full of facts, thoughtfully organized and rigorously sourced. He demands that facts at odds with his key policy assumptions be brought to his attention immediately. “Bad news never gets better with time,” he says, and berates any subordinate who fails to rush forward to him with such news. He does not suppress bad news; he acts on it.
in December 2002, Jim Haynes, the Defense Department’s general counsel, brought him the disturbing news that some lawyers in the military departments questioned the legality of the additional techniques. Rumsfeld did not brush off the questions or become defensive. In short order, he directed Haynes to revoke the authority for the new techniques. He told him to gather all the relevant lawyers in the department and review the matter — and he would not approve any new techniques until that review was completed. It took almost four months.
This story bears telling because when the cruel and sexually bizarre behavior at Abu Ghraib occurred many months later, critics inaccurately depicted Rumsfeld as disrespectful of laws on detainee treatment.
When he told organizations to take on new missions, their instinct — typical of bureaucracies — was to say they needed more people and more money. Rumsfeld responded: If changes in the world require us to do new things, those changes must also allow us to curtail or end old missions that we continue for no good reason. He made numerous major changes in the Defense Department at the cost of goring a lot of oxen.
Rumsfeld helped make the case that leaving [Saddam]him in power entailed significant risks. But in October 2002, Rumsfeld also wrote a list of the risks involved in removing Saddam from power. (I called the list his “parade of horribles” memo.) He reviewed it in detail with the president and the National Security Council. Rumsfeld’s warnings about the dangers of war — including the perils of a post-Saddam power vacuum — were more comprehensive than anything I saw from the CIA, State or elsewhere.

Read the whole article. This is far from the all negative all the time portrayal the nattering nabobs in the press have been giving us. If it doesn’t match their agenda, they don’t print it.