Rumsfeld Says Memo Meant to Make People Think

DoD - American Forces Press Service ^ | Oct. 23, 2003 | Jim Garamone

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Rumsfeld Says Memo Meant to Make People Think

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2003 - The Oct. 16 memo Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to defense leaders was aimed at getting people to think beyond day-to-day tasks and answer basic questions about the global war on terrorism and the department's roles, Rumsfeld said here Oct. 22.

Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers spoke about the memo following testimony at the Senate.

Someone leaked the memo to USA Today, and a front-page story seemed to indicate Rumsfeld believed the war on terror is failing. Rumsfeld said he wrote the memo to get people thinking about larger questions associated with DoD in the war on terrorism.

He told reporters the department is a large organization that needs to have a rhythm, but that occasionally it needs to be shaken up.

"Sometimes one needs to say to a big institution, 'Hey, wait a minute. Let's lift our eyes up and look out across the horizon and say, "Are there questions that we ought to be asking ourselves? Are ... there things that we ought to think about ways to do differently?"' And I do it periodically," Rumsfeld said.

Myers put the memo in context. He said the memo is something every good chief executive officer of a large corporation sends. "The larger an organization and the older an organization is, the more difficult it is to change it," Myers said. "And it's not going to happen unless you have the CEO bought into the need to change.

"The way we do business is, our boss is challenging us with a lot of questions on, ... are we changing ourselves to deal with this 21st century threat environment we find ourselves in? And it'd be interesting to count the number of question marks in that memo," the chairman said.

For the record, Rumsfeld asked 14 questions in the page-and-a-half memo.

Rumsfeld said one of the questions he asked dealt with developing measuring systems for long-term effectiveness. The idea is that the United States must do something to stop people from wanting to become terrorists or to support terrorism.

"We have lots of yardsticks and metrics where we can measure things like what's taking place in Iraq, what's taking place in Afghanistan, how we're doing in the finances, how we're doing in capturing and killing, for example, the top 55 Iraqi leaders or the top al Qaeda leaders," he said. "We know all those metrics.

"The tough one is the macro one," he continued. "How many young people are being taught to go out as suicide bombers and kill people? That's the question. How many are there? And how does that in-flow of terrorists in the world get reduced so that the number of people being captured or killed is greater than the ones being produced?"

He said measurements don't exist for that factor because it is too vast and complex. "But elevating that issue, I think, forces people to think about it in the broadest possible context, which is why I did so," he said.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

 Thanks, Tonkin!

[dep]

Memo Meant to Make People Think

that would explain why its meaning was lost on the mainstream media.

dep

[HarleyD]

I heard he only sent it to four people. I wouldn't want to be in those offices today.

[RKV]

It made me think. I think that we are fortunate to have Rummy around. All in all, the responses to the memo are what is sensitive, not the fact that the SECDEF wants to keep the service chiefs on their toes (which is what I interpret from the text of the document).

[556x45]

LOL! Exactly what I was thinking exc to include a much wider audience. I think thinking is passe these days.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

2 years, 2 toppled tyrants, and no major attacks after 9-11? This military is doing an awesome job!

Way to tell when the enemy's winning? The frightened press will stop criticizing the heroes who they know - in rare, honest moments of introspection (eg 9-12-01) - will do the best job of saving them from the bad guys.

Proof that we are winning, the hot air and noise coming from the ungrateful, unafraid, opposition press-pols 24/7.

<*/rant>
~~~

If you want on or off my Pro-Coalition ping list, please Freepmail me. Warning: it is a high volume ping list on good days. (Most days are good days).

[inPhase]

Agree with the media too dumb to read clearly, but the memo leak is not good for the President.

The memo is sobering and I do not have to look through the blurred lenses of the media.

In it Rumsfeld says
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror."
and
"Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?"
and of course,
"It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.
"

[mitchbert]

that would explain why its meaning was lost on the mainstream media.

Unfortunately this is also why it will be lost on a great many people period. I'm a business process engineering manager and I deal with withis mentality daily.

What Rummy was doing was exactly what I try and teach our managers to do; namely, always question what you're doing, successful or not, with a view towards continuous improvement. This is a BIG cultural mindset shift for a lot of people who have been rainsed in the "keep your head down and do your job" mentality, as the old school way of thinking equated "asking if we can do better" with "we are currently failing to do it right." This is how information silos develop in an organization, the result being often corporate stagnation and comnpetitive sclerosis. Worse, the culture becomes so ingrained that when something actually does go badly wrong there's often no one or no process in place that will tell the Emperor he's not wearing any clothes.

Rummy is challenging his people to always consider how to do what they do better. This is not the action of a person attempting to cover up failures. Good for him.

[TADSLOS]

Talk about a classic case of grasping for straws. The RAT media is just pathetic and shameless. I'd like to see the leaker found, drawn and quartered, then left hanging from a lightpole in the Pentagon courtyard for the rest of the leakers to contemplate over while passing their notes around.

[ex-snook]

People are going to think about why he didn't have these answers long before now. A policy that creates more terrorists than it kills is a loser. Rummy is looking for an exit strategy.

[Ann Archy]

I am praying that Rummy changed just One word in EACH memo to see WHO the leaker would be!! Or else he wanted it leaked.

[DannyTN]

"And how does that in-flow of terrorists in the world get reduced "

• End Terrorist control of the Palestinian authority and find a way to counteract the damage that has been done to the kids taught to hate.
• Find ways that Arabs and Muslims who are against terrorism can have an effective voice.
• Continue removing leaderships that fund, provide havens for and support terrorists, Including Syria.
• Increse the awareness of how terrorist leaders siphon of funds for themselves, like Arafat does.

[TADSLOS]

B.S. - Rummy's not Cohenlike to associate a personal exit strategy tied to a memo like some little 7th grader. If and when he wants to walk away and go retire on his New Mexico ranch, he'll say so privately to the President, then announce it publicly on his way out the door.

[blackie]

2 years, 2 toppled tyrants, and no major attacks after 9-11? This military is doing an awesome job!

Big Bump!

[SwinneySwitch]

I'm voting that Rummy was looking for the leak!;^)

[OESY]

Rumsfeld Says Memo Meant to Make People Think:
The Oct. 16 memo Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to defense leaders was aimed at getting people to think beyond day-to-day tasks and answer basic questions about the global war on terrorism and the department's roles.... Rumsfeld said he wrote the memo to get people thinking about larger questions associated with DoD in the war on terrorism.

Finally, we have an explanation as to why Democrats are so upset. They would never summon the audacity to ask such tough questions as are in the Rumsfeld memo. That's why there were 37 formal Vance-Owen ceasefires during Clinton's Balkan Wars, and why Secretary of State Warren Christopher went 27 times to Damascus, often left to wait for hours outside the Syrian dictator's office, and why Haiti's Aristide was emboldened by the Clintons to murder his political rivals, and why some of our boys were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, and why Secretary of Defense Les Aspin asked Senators he was supposed to be briefing what they wanted him to do next.

Dems don't live in the real world, so how could they possibly learn to govern, much less direct an effective foreign policy?

[lilylangtree]

Nothing wrong with stating rhetorical questions except for the dummies who don't understand and leak these questions to the press instead.

[OESY]

And another thing: The Office of the President should not be trusted to a person whose closest advisors cannot get security clearances because of drug use, as happened in the prior administration. Thank goodness Clinton was not awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for which he paid a lobbying firm to secure for him.

Eleanor Clift, Jonathan Alter and other Democrats may have called Bush's cabinet appointees "retreads" but we have learned they knew what they were doing, and their experience in the private sector taught them how to get things done. Why trust anyone else with national security, homeland defense and the recovering economy?

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

LOL! Good one!

Reducing inflow of terrorists. Possible ways:

1. Hurt the glamor. Maybe an Iraqi movie production front company that makes satires of terrorists in such a way its highly entertaining to the Middle East sense of humor. Analyze what the most popular comedies are in the Middle East. Model the movies after that. Also, study the most hated villainous fictitious characters in the Middle East and seek parallels with terrorist activity. Their guard is down in the fiction arena. One's taste for fiction is not inhibited the way one's official opinion might be in a poll.

2. Opposition research on the terrorist leaders, such as the 'Millionaire Mullahs' article regarding the mullahs of Iran.

3. Discourage any feeling of success from a a terror attack. Be the complete opposite of the US alphabet channels in how terror acts are portrayed. Increase determination with every terrorist hit in some cost-effective, incremental way, even if something else might have to be slashed to maintain the budget, something not noticed.

4. Derange and unrail the terror recruiters. Rather than kill a known recruiter, perhaps it would be more effective to destroy the recruiter's image. Perhaps some LSD could be slipped into a recruiter's drink. Perhaps a recruiter's wife could be made to look as though she's cheating on him. Perhaps nude photos of his wife are found among the recruits. Perhaps the recruiter is given viagra as a gift, and his behavior becomes more lusty. Perhaps the recruiter is tricked into thinking his most loyal recruits are conspiring against him.

5. Have mole 'recruiters' who are actually US operatives, then make a big show of 'gotcha' that the recruits were duped into killing other terrorists, and rub it in publicly, making them feel like fools, while showing them how cunning we are. Everyone wants to be on the smart side. Make our side look more cagy and smart. Make their side look stupid and gullible.

6. Attract young zealots to be daring US operatives. Make it look hip, kool, and virile. The smart side [as in point 5]. Have them inside pixsing out, rather than on the outside, pixsing in.