Frontline: Rumsfeld's War
Michael Kirk
Producer
Wednesday, October 27, 2004; 11:00 a.m. ET
With the United States Army deployed in a dozen hot spots around the world, on constant alert in Afghanistan, and taking casualties every day in Iraq, some current and former officers now say the army is on the verge of being "broken." They charge that the army is overstretched, demoralized and may be unable to fight where and when the nation desires. This fall, FRONTLINE and The Washington Post joined forces for an in-depth assessment of the state of the American army and the nation's military establishment. The program digs into the aggressive attempts to assert civilian control and remake the military by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his allies.
Watch "Rumsfeld's War" on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). Then, join series producer Michael Kirk online Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the report.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Spring Branch, Tex.:
Why now the Rumsfeld expose? Obviously a politically charged attempt by the leftist, Democrat serving rag sheet The Washington Post to discredit the administration and influence the election. Try examining the stifling Washington/Captiol Hill bureaucracy that keeps the likes of losers like Senator Levin, Secretary White and other big government as usual ployglots in business and on the front page. There is of course another side to this story which you would not dare approach because it could bring balance and expose these Democrats and their mainstream media attack hyenas.
Michael Kirk: This film is an effort to explain and examine one of the major institutions in our society that also affects a billion-dollars-a-day of our tax money and the lives of members of the U.S. military. There is no more relevant or important time to ask hard questions about the performance of government officials in this department than right now as they are asking for four more years of service to the country.
It is precisely the mission of Frontline to do this kind of serious reporting now.
As to your criticism that journalism has not been asking difficult questions about Washington bureaucracy, bloat and also the Demorcrats, that was not the brief of this program.
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Frazeysburg, Ohio:
Why hasn't Rumsfeld been fired? Can the Senate do anything about getting rid of him? How can one man, who isn't even the President, have this much power? Thank you for this extraordinary Frontline.
Michael Kirk: Donald Rumsfeld serves at the discretion of the president of the United States, to whom he reports, and his power derives from the president's willingness to let him exercise it.
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Atlanta, Ga.:
How much of Secretary Rumsfeld's performance at the Pentagon during the Bush administration could have been predicted from his record as President Ford's Defense Secretary?
I realize not many reporters and TV documentarians active then are still on the job. I myself see many similarities; what do you think?
Michael Kirk: There are similarities, but it was in those days, as we tried to indicate -- a very different Pentagon and very different military in 1975. The Vietnam War and its aftershocks had captured the military's attention. They were pulling in and regrouping. Rumsfeld, as a civilian, had little to do with that process. He was occupied in a struggle with Secretary of State Kissinger over anti-ballistic missile treaties with the Soviet Union and a very real philosophic difference with realists in the Ford administration.
Furthermore, a substantial amount of his time was spent fighting off congressional assaults on the intelligence function inside the Defense Department and the CIA. These issues are very different than the ones he inherited in 2001: a robust and powerful uniformed military, a billion-dollar-a-day enterprise with 26,000 bureaucrats, a desire to transform a military machine designed to fight a Cold War that was 15 years past, and a certain knowledge that high-tech changes needed to be implemented.
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Huntington, N.Y.:
Why were Bush and Rice hardly mentioned during the program? What was their input in Rumsfeld's decisions?
Michael Kirk: This was a film about the war behind closed doors at the Pentagon and the personalities Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, Vice President Cheney, the forces of neoconservativism and the uniformed military -- which took place inside the president and Condoleeza Rice's field of vision, but because of the nature of the conflict, not always with their specific knowledge or direction.
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Duluth, Minn.:
Respond to these facts that were mentioned in your discussion section:
Secretary of the Army Thomas White was asked to resign not because of his or Chief of Staff of the Army Shinseki's opinions on troop strength levels for Iraq; he was relieved because he circumvented Rumsfeld months earlier in lobbying Congress behind the scenes to save the Crusader mobile artillery system, a Cold War-era weapon system out of touch with needs of the modern asymmetrical warfighting environment. Your production mentioned nothing of this -- nor, of course, did Secretary White in his interview. Viewers are left with the impression that he was fired solely because he was not a team player concerning Iraq. That is simply not true.
Another instance: Rumsfeld's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Indeed, it was a low moment for the Department of Defense, as the actions of these soldiers stained the honor of all soldiers and inflamed anti-American opinion in the Arab world. Rumsfeld's performance, though, contrary to your narrator's assessment, was strong, decisive, and persuasive, and left no doubt that the individuals committing these acts were wrong and would be swiftly punished. Again, your presentation insinuates that Rumsfeld's "rush to war" was responsible for this breakdown in order, that he pushed to fight the war on the cheap and take shortcuts that resulted in these soldiers doing the wrong thing. This was not the case, but you'd think it was after watching your presentation.
Respond honestly whether you have a liberal bias or a bias toward the other presidential candidate AND whether that bias was either reflected in your editing or inadequate investigative reporting.
Michael Kirk: Like any dismissal, there are many reasons the Secretary chose to relieve Tom White. Secretary Rumsfeld, like many managers who pride themselves on running a tight ship, insists on loyalty and towing the party line. Secretary White, in relation to troop strength, the Iraqi war plan, the beret controversy, many other items and the Crusader weapons system, was definitely not playing on the Rumsfeld team in the way the Secretary wanted it done.
As a journalist facing the limitations or the tyranny of time on the air, I have to make selections about what I believe and what others tell me are the most important and relevant facts to present. I believe the most important reason Secretary White was relieved was because he was not a team player and that the troop strength controversy was at least as important as any other and it was the one that White was about to speak out on because it was the one everyone was about to pay attention to because of the growing insurgency in Iraq.
As to your second question/example, that is the Abu Ghraib matter. Your conclusions about our intentions are inaccurate. That's neither what we said nor, I believe, what we implied and I disagree vehemently with them. Abu Ghraib is, as Sen. Lindsay Graham indicated, a failure at many levels and is a result of many problems. The Schlessinger Report is perhaps most-damning of the Secretary and others and those facts and positions were simply reported by us, not endorsed.
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Kailua Kona, Hawaii:
Why isn't there any interviews of retired General Shinseki? He was absolutely correct in his estimation of manpower in postwar Iraq. Millions of people would be very interested in his views and his whole story of "Rumsfeld's Folly."
Michael Kirk: We were in contact with General Shinseki for months hoping to interview him and he declined. But Frontline did make an hour documentary about General Shinseki which aired in 1999 and we drew much of our reporting from that interview with Gen. Shinseki.
He also, while not talking to us on camera, verified facts and statements for our researchers.
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Washington, D.C.:
What would you guess is Rumsfeld's "popularity rating"? How do you think this may influence the election. I have talked to undecideds who are looking for a reason to vote one way or the other, I point to Bush's cabinet and ask "do you want four more years of these guys."
Do you think people think about it this way?
Michael Kirk: I don't guess about anything publicly so I don't know about his popularity. I do know that he has a record and things have happened under his stewardship and films like ours and the regular reporting of The Washington Post team is a very good reference for coming to conclusions based on the evidence of his perfomance.
To find The Post reporting for the last four years, I refer to the link at the top right of this page.
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Lakeland, Fla.:
Rumsfeld came in with the idea that we needed a
lighter, quicker, more high-tech fighting force.
What was the genisis of these ideas, and what
made him such a strong advocate?
Michael Kirk: They've been brewing in military thinktanks and war colleges for years. A lot of people believed that the billion dollar a day Pentagon was too "heavy" -- big naval fleets, big bombers, heavy tanks, lots of foot soldiers and that it was not using the available technology to fight small networked wars and that in order to confront the new threats in the post-Cold War world, America needed to retool.
It was all known as transformation and President Bush ran on that idea in the summer and fall of 2000.
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Rochester, N.Y.:
Thank you for a very good program. I was quite interested to see that conflicts between Powell and Cheney extend at least up to the first gulf war. I wonder if there is an earlier origin to this?
Thanks again.
Michael Kirk: They both served, as did many others in the Bush administration, in various capacities -- in some cases going back into the Nixon administration, Reagan administration, the first Bush administration and now this Bush administration. During that time the differences in their politics were illuminated by a variety of complicated international crises: the first time terror struck Americans in Beirut, the arms transfer associated with Iran and the Contras, Grenada, the bombing of Libya, the capture of Noriega and an endless list of other crises...
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Richmond, Va.:
Great program. It appears that there are members of the military establishment who feel betrayed by this administration. There has been speculation within the Beltway that if Bush is re-elected, Rumsfeld will leave and Wolfowitz will be appointed the new Secretary of Defense. Likely? And, if so, what might be the reaction within the military?
Michael Kirk: I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a pollster and the military is not monolithic. And Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons have certainly received their share of bad press as a result of what appears to be a potential quagmire in Iraq now. Whether that affects his chances to be Secretary of Defense is a function of a major event that will occur next Tuesday in the United States and, if Bush is reelected, his desire to keep and perhaps promote Wolfowitz.
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New York, N.Y.:
Aside from declining to be interviewed, did you get any pressure to not air this or negative response from the Pentagon or any other government official (or campaign staff) regarding this report?
Michael Kirk: A disappointing yes. We were strongly encouraged by the office of the Secretary of Defense not to broadcast this program prior to the election. We were offered substantial access to the Defense Department if we would wait one week to air it. And when we chose to bring our best efforts to understanding this important American institution to the people at the time when they would be most interested, almost everyone we contacted, every retired or current military figure we asked to participate was dissuaded from participating by the Defense Department.
It is not, to those of us experienced in the way government agencies try to trade access for favorable coverage, a surprise -- but it is, as I say, a disappointment that the Defense Department would not help us educate and inform the American people at this important time.
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Washington, D.C.:
I was fascinated by last night's Frontline expose on Rumsfeld and the war. Do you think Rumsfeld, today, is as inflexible as Bush is in "staying the course," rather than seeing the error of his ways, in the case of Iraq?
Michael Kirk: I don't know and I'm not sure I can even speculate about your hypothesis inherent in your question. Our reporting shows that Iraq and the aftermath of the war offer tremendous and seemingly insurmountable, at least in the near future, problems for any president and any Secretary of Defense.
They have not acknowledged or agreed with that in public as far as I know.
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Washington, D.C.:
What were the reasons behind Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz's insistence that the Iraq war and occupation could be successfully accomplished with a drastically reduced troop strength then originally advocated by the military? Were they relying on any assumptions that have proven false?
Michael Kirk: I think there were many reasons -- not the least of which was the regular assurances provided by Iraqi exiles like Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, who said that Iraqi people would be so happy to have removed the 30-year yoke of a bloody dictator, that they would welcome the short-term occupation of their country by the United States military.
There are others who have argued there was a certain amount of hubris involved in the decisions, wishful thinking, idealism, and a kind of ideological fervor that may have precluded listening to other voices like General Shinseki, who argued another course.
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Rochester, N.Y.:
Hi Mr. Kirk,
U.S. force levels used to be prepared for two potential wars globally. What is the strategy now? Have our needs become smaller or larger? Why isn't this made clearer in the election debates?
Thanks very much.
Michael Kirk: There are those we've interviewed who are extremely concerned about our ability to respond -- primarily with the Army -- to other conflicts besides the one in Iraq. And estimates about responding to two conflicts simultaneously are being revised downward. It's a very good question, one that can be answered, but is statistically manipulated by both sides of the debate to such an extent that it's hard to know the real answer. It would be great if this critical question were part of the presidential dialogue because it so dramatically affects the lives of our military personnel around the world.
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Ottawa, Canada:
Why do you think Powell did not resign just before the start of the war on Iraq? If he would have the administration might had a hard time trying to justify the war.
Michael Kirk: Washington Post reporter Robin Wright's very good answer in our broadcast last night is consistent with what I believe. To paraphrase, it is that Secretary Powell, as a former military officer, serves his commander in chief -- especially in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America. Furthermore, he knows and has served with, many of the military personnel presently engaged in risking their lives on behalf of America. And, apparently, he does not want to jeopardize their well being by signalling to enemies that this administration is not determined to go the distance against them.
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Bethesda, Md.:
I listened to the Frontline report last night and kept wondering just how different Rumsfeld was compared to past Defense Secretaries. The report focused much about his determination to change the way the Pentagon was being run, but I did not get a sense on how different Rumsfeld was compared to the past secretaries. Can you sum up the uniqueness of Rumsfeld and what he is doing that is outside the bounds of what others have done before him?
Michael Kirk: Donald Rumsfeld, according to those who have watched him closely and have seen other Secretaries of Defense in action, is perhaps the most hands-on Secretary of Defense in history (some would argue similar to Robert Macnamara).
Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks, in our broadcast last night, further defines Rumsfeld's "uniqueness" in this sense. He functions as Mr. Inside -- managing the day-to-day functions and leaving the outside politicking and strategic planning to his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. That is a role reversal that is probably unprecedented.
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Beacon, N.Y.:
Do you have the impression that
Rumsfeld was personally devastated by
Abu Ghraib, or was it more of a
political-tactical blow?
Was there a real possibility of his
resignation, and do you predict a
shake-up if this administration is
re-elected? (I'm crossing my fingers for
McCain, for either administration.)
Thanks.
Michael Kirk: I don't really know, to be honest. I spent six months thinking about him, talking to many who know him. It is hard to believe any human being responsible for the U.S. military would not feel pain upon seeing the photographs and learning the details of what happened at Abu Ghraib.
But, someone who has been in the rough and tumble of politics for their entire adult life would also, no doubt, have instincts and reactions that were tactical and political. So, I'm sure that this problem of the many he has faced, has certainly affected him across the spectrum -- from personal to political.
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washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up this hour's discussion. Continue talking about "Rumsfeld's War" right now with Post reporter Dana Priest.
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