Rumsfeld finally has his own man at U.S. Central Command to supervise a war against Iraq

Pentagon chatter says Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld finally has his own man at U.S. Central Command to supervise a war against Iraq: Army Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid.

Officials said the hard-charging Mr. Rumsfeld was not always happy with the way Gen. Tommy Franks ran the war in Afghanistan. He has worried that Gen. Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, will not be innovative enough in waging war against Iraq.

Now, however, Mr. Rumsfeld has plucked a general from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and sent him to Central Command as Mr. Franks' deputy. In fact, Gen. Abizaid is already at CentCom's warfighting command center in Qatar getting ready to direct a war.

It was an odd move, given that CentCom already had a deputy commander, who is staying at its Tampa headquarters. But it does give Mr. Rumsfeld a deputy in the Gulf region whom he fully trusts.

A favorite of the defense secretary, Gen. Abizaid is a West Point graduate and career infantryman who speaks fluent Arabic, a skill that should help with Persian Gulf allies.

He also speaks German and Italian, a skill that helped when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Germany in 1999-2000.

Winning the countryside Amid the continued hunt for hard-core al Qaeda and Taliban, the U.S. military is slowly winning the war for the countryside in Afghanistan.

Among the many outreach programs is the "Adopt a Village" civil affairs initiative run out of Bagram air base north of Kabul.

American troops deliver clothes, food and school supplies, and meet local Afghans.

Hmmm. My recollection was inexact on a couple points. Here is the relevant portion of the briefing. I've also included some stuff following that is interesting, concerning press attempts to feed, inflame and exagerate contention over Rummy's most excellent leadership style. The full transcript is here:

Rumsfeld: I'm going to finish my thought and then we're through.

Someone mentioned General Franks, or I did. I'm not -- I don't want to be critical of any one person or any newspaper, but we're going into a difficult period. And accuracy and precision on my part is important, and accuracy and precision on your parts is important. There's just an awful lot of mischief taking place around here.

I read an article that said that I overruled General Franks and -- because I was disagreeing, we were disagreeing, and I put General John Abizaid in as his deputy, so that we could keep track of what he's doing. That is absolute hogwash.

The truth is that what happened was that Paul Wolfowitz came to me and said that General Franks had come to him and said, "How do you think I could approach the Secretary of Defense about the possibility of my getting General Abizaid as my deputy, one of my deputies?"

And Paul said, "I don't know. He's not going to like it, because he likes him as director of the Joint Staff. He's doing a terrific job there. Dick Myers isn't going to like it, and Pete" -- (laughter) -- "and Pete Pace isn't going to like it. So you, General Franks, better figure out a way that you can make it so persuasive that you can get the secretary, the deputy secretary, the chairman and the vice chairman to agree to let this fine talent leave the Joint Staff" -- where he was doing tremendously important work and exceedingly well -- and go -- "and that he is the only one in the entire armed forces, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, that can do that job for you. And that's not going to be an easy sell," he told Franks.

So, General Franks comes sidling up to you and sidling up to me and sidling up to Paul, and we said, "No! We need him here." And so, he goes away, and he comes back a week and a half later and does it again. He sidles up to all of us and he was persuasive. And finally we said, "Well, maybe. But not now." And we kept delaying it.

So, why do I say this? The article left the --

Q: (Off mike.)

Rumsfeld: Who said that?

Q: Why? It's just a lot of inside baseball and --

Rumsfeld: No, it's not. It's a principle. And it's very important. There's obviously people running around this building saying things that aren't true and trying to make mischief. And people are believing them and writing them without checking it, and it's harmful and it's not helpful. You call it inside baseball. I think it is a bad practice, and I think people ought to check their sources a heck of a lot better over the next month or two than they generally make a practice to check.

(Cross talk.)

Some of you!

Q: Wait, to give you a chance here, because the major criticism I've heard in this building since you've been here, Mr. Secretary, is -- let's give you a chance to respond -- is that you tend to ride roughshod over your military leadership. And some of the people around you, I won't mention their names, but some of your civilian close aides are equally tougher. And many of the military people are unhappy because they feel they're out of the loop, they feel you don't take them into your confidence, all of the above. Now, would you please respond to that, because that's coming up over and over and over again.

Rumsfeld: I'd be delighted to.

I'm going to guess, but I don't believe --

Q: (Off mike) (Laughter.)

Clarke: [Joking] It's not just the military! (Laughter.)

Rumsfeld: Oh! Ow! (Groans.) (Cheers, laughter.)

(Cross talk.) (Laughter.)

Rumsfeld: The truth is that I don't believe -- I could be wrong, but I don't believe that a chairman or a vice chairman have probably ever been as deeply involved in every decision that's taking place in this department as is the case today. I keep reading, in two newspapers particularly, that Rumsfeld doesn't meet with the chiefs. I did not bring down the paper, but it is -- the number of meetings that we have had with the chiefs in the past two years has been an average of about -- a chief, or two, or three or all -- has been something like every other week. And that does not count the meetings that we have every day, two or three times, with the chairman and the vice chairman.

So it is a myth. It is false. It does not matter what you are hearing about the absence of interaction.

Second, with respect to the people --

Q: (Off mike.)

Rumsfeld: Yes, I'm coming. I'm coming to that. With respect to people's impressions, everyone can have their own view. I have received on occasion from people, military and civilian, work that I was not impressed with. And have indicated that. And there have been times when I've sent things back six, seven times. Why? Well, because it strikes me that it's terribly important that we do things well and we do them right. And I have sent things back on the civilian side, and I have sent things back on the military side. And I will keep right on doing it.

Now, it's no fun for somebody to have their work sent back four or five times, six times, seven times. I know of one case --

Myers: Was that me?

Rumsfeld: No! (Laughter.) Just a minute! Just a minute! (Laughter continues.) And if that disturbs people and their sensitivities are such that it bothers them, I'm sorry. But that's life, because this stuff we're doing is important. We're going to get it done well. We're going to get it done right. The Constitution calls for civilian control of this department. And I'm a civilian. And believe me, this place is accomplishing enormous things. We have done so much in the last two years. And it doesn't happen by standing around with your finger in your ear hoping everyone thinks that that's nice.

General Myers, feel free to say anything you want. (Laughter.)

Myers: It's -- just to piggyback --

(Off mike joking, laughter.)

Myers: No. Just to piggyback on that last piece -- (laughter) -- you know, the work we do, in all seriousness, I mean, I don't know if there's more serious work that you could do for your country than the work that's done here in the department. So it's got to be done right. It affects people's lives: Our citizens, perhaps folks in other countries as well. So, the processes we go through, the insistence on high standards by the Secretary is absolutely right. And I don't know of anybody that resents that. And I would tell you, if General Pace or I had -- were asked to spend any more time with the Secretary, and if he consulted any more often, we'd have to start going home with him at night and get into bed with him. (Laughter.) And so -- and that's probably not going to happen, although I'm not sure. (Laughter.) So -- I mean, I feel like I'm in every decision, some of which he wouldn't even have to consult the military.

Q: He's a tough son of a gun, he's got a reputation of being a real rough guy, and he'll take to the woodshed people with four stars on their collars, it doesn't make any difference?

Myers: (Pause, laughter.) I think he's done it just right. So let's -- (laughter).

Q: (Ann ?) says we ought to take the chairman and the rest of the chiefs and their extended families out of the country and interview on this. (Laughter.)

Q: (Inaudible.)

Myers: You can do it if you want to, I mean it's the same answer.

Rumsfeld: Yes, you could get any one of those people that I deal with and talk to them privately any time you want. The problem is, you're hearing from people that for the most part I don't deal with, it seems to me.

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