By His Own Rules : The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld

831 Pages·2009·3.72 MB·English

by  Bradley Graham

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B Y H I S O W N R U L E S
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B R A D L E Y G R A H A M
B Y H I S
THE AMBITIONS, SUCCESSES, AND
O W N
ULTIMATE FAILURES OF DONALD RUMSFELD
R U L E S
New York
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Copyright © 2009 by Bradley Graham.
Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
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Book Design by Trish Wilkinson
Text set in 11-point Minion
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graham, Bradley.
By his own rules : the ambitions, successes, and ultimate failures of
Donald Rumsfeld / Bradley Graham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58648-421-7 (hardcover)
1. Rumsfeld, Donald, 1932– 2. Cabinet officers—United States—
Biography. 3. United States. Dept. of Defense—Officials and employees—
Biography. 4. War on Terrorism, 2001– 5. Iraq War, 2003– 6. United
States—Politics and government—2001–I. Title.
E840.8.R84G73 2009
355.6092—dc22
[B] 2008055406
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To Seymour and Kalmaine
And to Russell
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Contents
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1 A Bit of a Rascal 15
CHAPTER 2 Developing His Own Tune 39
CHAPTER 3 Tough Enough 73
CHAPTER 4 Keep Your Eye on Rummy 107
CHAPTER 5 A Politician in the Corporate World 143
CHAPTER 6 A Friendly Hawkish Guy 171
CHAPTER 7 Operating from the Outbox 199
CHAPTER 8 Lots of Battlefronts 237
CHAPTER 9 A Defining Moment 281
CHAPTER 10 Iterative Planning 323
CHAPTER 11 Too Many Hands on the Wheel 377
CHAPTER 12 Long, Hard Slog 417
CHAPTER 13 The Thought of Resigning 449
CHAPTER 14 Framework for Iraq 487
vii
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viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER 15 Second Thoughts 531
CHAPTER 16 A Period of Continuous Change 563
CHAPTER 17 Toward the Abyss 593
CHAPTER 18 Not Well Enough or Fast Enough 631
Epilogue 663
Acknowledgments 683
Notes 687
Bibliography 749
Index 771
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Introduction
F
ace time with the president is political gold in Washington, so Donald
Rumsfeld moved quickly after taking charge at the Pentagon to secure
regular private meetings with President George W. Bush. Now, nearly six
years and many meetings later, the defense secretary arrived in the Oval
Office prepared to raise a delicate, personal matter.
His opportunity came as talk that day,in September 2006,turned to
Iraq. The conflict there was going badly. Violence had metastasized into a
civil war. Plans to begin a major drawdown of U.S. troops had stalled.
Iraqi forces still appeared unready to assume charge of security, and the
Iraqi government, riven by sectarian strife, was doing little to unite the na-
tion. In Washington, much of the blame for the mess in Iraq had fallen on
Rumsfeld. He had failed to plan adequately for the occupation, was slow
to develop a counterinsurgency campaign, and had alienated too many
people with his combative, domineering personality.
By then, Rumsfeld had hung on to office longer than most of his
predecessors in the top Pentagon job. But with congressional elections
approaching in the fall, he had become a campaign target, vilified by
Democrats and considered a political liability by many Republicans. If,
as was increasingly anticipated, Democrats won control of one or both
1