Rumsfeld Memo: Did he leak it?

There has been uproar over a memo that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote to four senior staff members in the Department of Defense. The memo raises questions about how effectively the department has been fighting the war on terrorism, stating, "DoD (Department of Defense) has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere -- one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem." It continued, "With respect to global terrorism, the record since September 11th seems to be: We are having mixed results with al Qaeda, although we have put considerable pressure on them -- nonetheless, a great many remain at large. USG (U.S. government) has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis. USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban…"

The memo states the obvious. Here's what's interesting: Not only was it made public, Rumsfeld affirmed it in an Oct. 22 press conference. Obviously, he wanted it to be public. From our point of view, the reason is clear. A central criticism about Rumsfeld -- one that we have made several times -- is that he appeared to be out of touch with reality. Or, as we put it once, he's been fighting a different war than the rest of us were watching.

This memo confirms what we've always suspected -- Rumsfeld's public persona and his own evaluation of reality are very different. Part of the pressure to move Rumsfeld aside as the dominant personality in the war came from the perception that he could not admit to the unanticipated problems in Iraq. For us, at least, this posed a serious crisis of confidence in him. If the man couldn't see the problems, he couldn't possibly fix them. In the end, President George W. Bush kept him on board, but reshuffled the deck -- slipping in National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice over him on Iraq and Afghanistan.

This memo is Rumsfeld's reply. In it, he states his awareness of the serious problems and convenes his senior civilian and military staff to consider methods of dealing with them. He also acknowledges that the problems are deeply rooted and require fundamental rethinking of how the United States will fight this war. There is an implicit political message here -- Rumsfeld knew this all along, but maintained his cheerleader attitude to play the role the administration assigned to him. Therefore, the memo implies, it is unfair to blame him for the problems, since he had always known them.

On this score, Rumsfeld is undoubtedly telling the truth. He is an extraordinarily capable man, and those of far less capacity -- like us -- knew there were serious problems. He knew it as well, and has now stated the problem very clearly. After Pearl Harbor, a fundamental rethinking took place on ways to fight that war. Commanders were retired and reassigned; the services' institutional frameworks were redefined. After Sept. 11, there were no fundamental changes -- not in people or institutions.

Worse yet, the peacetime process inside the Department of Defense continued to manage procurement, personnel and most other issues. A global war was being managed by a peacetime entity. This "business as usual" approach resulted in a range of problems -- from intelligence failures to manpower shortages to misallocation. Rumsfeld's most important point is whether the Defense Department is capable of fighting a war like this, or whether an entirely new entity must be created to do so.

This is a breath of fresh air. Rather than stale optimism, Rumsfeld is grappling with the fundamental question. This war -- like every other war ever fought -- is different from what went before. The Defense Department was configured to fight the war that never happened, and it also fought -- though not particularly well -- a series of other wars that needed fighting, such as Korea and Vietnam. The department's basic structure has not changed, in spite of the fact that the Cold War is long over, and the U.S.-Islamist war bears no resemblance to it. The same planning and administrative mechanisms built to fight the Cold War are trying to fight this one. As a result, the forces available for this war look remarkably like those designed to defend the north German plain. This probably won't work.

Most likely, the memo will become a political football. But the fact is the United States usually doesn't do particularly well in the early stages of war. Failures are what compel military revolution and lead the United States to victory. Vietnam was the one exception to this rule -- fundamental rethinking of lessons learned did not happen until much too late. The six-month delay between unexpected problems in Iraq and recognition of those problems is not particularly unusual in U.S. defense thinking, nor is it strategically significant -- unless Rumsfeld's memo is ignored.

The interesting thing now will be whether this memo sinks into the Potomac like so many memos, or becomes the basis for radical rethinking of U.S. operations at all levels and in all theaters. In six months, if the current array of senior commanders is still in place, the current personnel policies are still applied, the intelligence problems remain unfixed and the strategic vision impaired, then the memo will be a footnote in history. If, on the other hand, it triggers a wave of retirements, and new policies and tempos geared to this war, then the memo will be historic.

We're probably in the minority on this, but our bet is that the United States -- as in previous wars -- is on the threshold of an upheaval in the Defense Department, the CIA and elsewhere. For better or worse, this is how America fights its wars. The current situation cannot continue if the president hopes to be re-elected. We do not underestimate Washington's inertia, but neither should we underestimate the incredible pressure that is building under the Bush administration.

We have a problem at the borders with illegals and terrorists that would be greatly reduced by a change in US policy. The change would be to reduce government subsidies for farm prices so as to increase the cost of grain and --increase government subsidies for energy development so as to decrease the cost of energy.

There is an elegant way to do this.

But first let me show how current US government policies are aggravating problems at the borders.

In brief, NAFTA enabled US grain producers to sell into Mexican markets for the first time starting in the late 1980's. US government price supports enables US grain to deeply undercut Mexican grain producers--and drive Mexicans out of business. Unlike the US where only about 2.5% of the population remains on the land--in Mexico the percentage is more like 30%. The result of NAFTA has been that millions of Mexicans are being driven off the land. They are coming north to look for employment in the USA. In doing so, they are breaking US laws and becoming a great financial burden on US public services.

While the US subsidizes US agribusiness to keep farm prices low, OPEC controls the oil flow to keep oil prices high. The USA does little to actively counter act the high cost of oil--and in many instances-- because of envirornmental concerns--actively encourages higher oil prices. Artificially high priced oil drains capital out of the third world at a porportionally higher rate than the USA and the money in turn is transferred from oil producers to American securities. The lack of capital stunts development in the third world. (This was last recognized by US policy makers in the 1970's under the failed petro dollar recycling program of the World Bank's Robert McNamera etc.) As a result there is an increase in illegal migrations to the US from failing third world countries. The added cash from high oil prices in the coffers of middle eastern business interests also serves a source of funding for terrorists.

As mentioned before the solution to the two problems--first-- is to drop US government price supports for agricultural products. (That would make Mexican producers more competitive.) Second, as an inducement to powerful US agribusiness interests to sign on to their loss of price supports the US government --would---as a quid pro quo support/finance the construction of facilities which would convert agricultural wastes to oil. (This would go a long way toward balancing out agricultures loss of price supports with increased yield from their products in terms of revenue from waste--and the cost to the US government would be paid for by the savings from the dropped agricultural subsidies program.)

There is a technology that will convert agriculural waste to oil for $15@barrel. In 2001 agriculture wastes alone were enough to produce an estimated to produce 4 billion barrels of oil. The effect of turning agriculutural wastes (as well as industrial & municipal wastes) to oil will be to kill the US oil import bill (which in 2001 was about 4 billion barrels) and cap the price of oil at $15@barrel--thereby defunding the middle east & the supporters of terrorists. As well, cheaper oil overseas priced in cheap dollars would set off an era of great prosperity overseas--thereby helping US exporters--while the paradigm shift of agricultural--as well as municipal & industrial conversion of wastes to oil-- in third world countries-- would stop the uneven capital flows out of the third world. At the same time the higher food prices resulting from from the loss of government subsidies would result in Mexican farmers being more competitive with US agriculture. Fewer Mexican farmers would be driven off the land.

Here's background material for the idea.

This article entitled The Mexican Experience and lessons for WTO Negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture--is a June 11, 2003 presentation to the European Parliament. The article shows that the NAFTA agreement exposed the Mexican economy to price supported US grain producers who have driven and are now driving Mexican farmers off the land--and north of the border.
http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentary/2003/0306eu_body.html.

The technology that converts agricultural wastes (as well as municipal &industrial wastes & sewage) to oil for $15@ barrel already has received funding from the EPA and the DOE. ConAgra has put up $40 million. ConAgra is currently represented the son of Arnold Schwartznegger's economics advisor--Warren Buffett. (imho something involving this technology will be included in one of the miracles that Arnold is required to perform.) There are two plants currently in operation: One in Philadelphia which converts municipal sewage to oil and another in Missouri which converts turkey offals to oil. The technology is supported by James Woolsey, former CIA director, and Alf Andreassen, former science adviser to George Bush. Currently, twelve more plants are in the planning stage.

Biomass conversion has been around for a couple decades. But it has been expensive and problematic. The newest generation solves the problems of earlier generations -- and the makers insist that with economies of scale they can drive production down production costs to $8-$10@barrel. The technology immitates the process in nature that by heat and pressure creates oil in the first place. Only instead of the conversion taking place over millions of years--the conversion is done in real time. The process can convert munincipal garbage & sewage, as well as industrial and agricultural wastes to oil.

Here are a couple links to articles on the technology. 1

http://www.matr.net/article-6837.html
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/newoil.htm
http://www.petroretail.net/fon/2003/0306/0306nt.asp
This is the company website
http://www.changingworldtech.com/techfr.htm

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