Donald Rumsfeld generated quite a bit of attention last fall when USA Today obtained a memo about his real thoughts on the war on terror. Contrasting with the upbeat rhetoric from his boss, Rumsfeld painted a bleak picture.
In fact, Rumsfeld’s memo made it clear that he believes that the administration he serves has no meaningful plan on what the U.S. should do next to deal with the terorrist threat. The Defense Secretary said, for example, that the administration has “no yardstick for measuring progress in the war on terrorism,” has not made any “truly bold moves” in fighting al Qaeda and other terror groups, our efforts against al Queda are producting “mixed reults,” and the Bush administration is “putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan” to “stop the next generation of terrorists.”
Naturally, Rumsfeld and the White House spin machine downplayed the memo’s content and significance, characterizing it as a stream of consciousness list of concerns, instead of a realistic assessment of the administration’s shortcomings. Other crises arose and the memo was largely forgotten.
I hope Bush’s communications team kept its talking points, however, because Rumsfeld has done it again.
The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism’s source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.
The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists — whom he termed ”zealots and despots” bent on destroying the global system of nation-states — are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.
”It’s quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,” Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.
The civilian head of the Pentagon doesn’t believe that the U.S. has a “coherent approach” to dealing with terrorists? Isn’t this a pretty bad sign?
One more thing. When Nancy Pelosi questions whether the administration has a coherent approach to handling the terrorist threat, the GOP says she’s undermining the troops. When John Kerry asks why the administration has no plan, the GOP says he’s aiding and abetting the enemy. So what, pray tell, is the GOP reaction to Rumsfeld’s remarks?