The last time he visited Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Donald Rumsfeld was an agenda-setting defense secretary fresh off the U.S. military’s early success in Afghanistan.
That trip took place nine years ago, before the war in Iraq came to define Rumsfeld’s tenure in the other Washington while it drew tens of thousands of soldiers from the base south of Tacoma into combat.
Rumsfeld returns Friday to Lewis-McChord to meet with local soldiers and airmen as he promotes his 813-page memoir, “Known and Unknown.” He said he looks forward to seeing familiar faces.
“One of the real enjoyable aspects of writing a book and then going to various places is that people come up who I’d met in Iraq or Afghanistan or around the world, and it gives me a chance to thank them again for their service for the country,” he said.
Rumsfeld, 79, now spends his days in Montana and occasionally weighs in on conservative causes. He’s heading out Friday from Seattle on a cruise sponsored by the American Conservative Union.
He resigned as defense secretary in 2006 when the Iraq war was at its bloodiest and retired American generals and others were sharply criticizing him. In an op-ed piece for The New York Times, Ret. Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton of Fox Island called Rumsfeld “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically.”
Rumsfeld’s book is his attempt to tell the story of those years as he saw them. He spoke with The News Tribune this week about the book and the challenges the Defense Department faces today:
When you were last here, you were portrayed as an opponent of the Stryker infantry vehicle. A third of the soldiers at Lewis-McChord now serve in Stryker brigades. What are your thoughts on the vehicle today, and how did it perform while you were secretary of defense?
While I was there, they did an excellent job. I’ve of course been out for 41/2 years. I don’t recall saying anything to anyone that would lead them to believe what you said. They were new and untested.
We recently covered the opening of a $53 million warrior transition unit at Lewis-McChord. Could you have better prepared for the medical and psychological wounds from the wars earlier in the Bush administration?
Of course things always evolve and change. They certainly were prepared in many respects. They were organized, trained and equipped. If you think of the amazing medical assistance that troops are getting today, an enormous number of the people today are recovering from wounds who would not have lived in earlier conflicts.
That change occurred because of the speed and skill with we which can get people off the battlefield, and it has changed the nature of what’s required afterwards.
In your book, you stress that the appearance of weakness can invite attacks. Is our military showing weakness today?
What I said was just a fact. Weakness does invite aggression; it encourages people to do things they never would have thought of doing.
Where are we today? We’re clearly not demonstrating weakness in Afghanistan or Iraq. The policy in Libya, the ambivalence prolonged what was going on there for weeks and weeks. If the president had said “When this is done, Ghadafi will not be there,” people would have defected to the rebels. He didn’t, he said that wasn’t our policy.
You fought for defense spending increases after Vietnam and when you took office with President Bush. Where would you start if you had to trim Pentagon spending today?
We have this feast or famine where they swing the wheel one way or they swing the wheel another way. It’s not efficient. After the Cold War, the U.S. cut back on our intelligence commitments and our defense spending. We ended up with 9/11.
An outside observer could say, “Well, listen, we survived, so maybe that was not the most efficient way to do it, but it didn’t kill us.” And that’s true.
On the other hand the lethality of weapons today is so vastly greater than in earlier eras that we don’t have the margin for error that we used to have. The leadership doesn’t have it.
The second fact of the Department of Defense is there’s no big government bureaucracy that doesn’t have waste there. A lot of the problems are from Congress. The Congress stuffs about $10 billion down the Defense Department’s throat that we didn’t want and had nothing to do with national security. There are certainly things that can be done.
In your book, you’re critical of the Johnson administration for misleading the American people about the costs of the Vietnam War. What do you say to Americans who say the same is true about you and the Bush administration for misjudging Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and underestimating the Iraqi insurgency?
On repeated occasions, I said that anyone who thinks they can tell you how long a war is going to last, how much it’s going to cost, how many lives are going to be lost – simply can’t do it. It isn’t possible.
The enemy has a brain, all plans go out the window with first contact with the enemy, and it simply is beyond the ability to make those judgments and estimates. I said that repeatedly when I was in the Pentagon, and you just simply have to know that.
As a young congressman I listened to prognostications coming out of the Johnson administration that proved wrong, and I think people in the Bush administration avoided that language after major combat operations had ended.
Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646
adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/military
IF YOU GO
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will sign copies of his book, “Known and Unknown,” Friday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Proceeds from book sales will go to military-related charities.
Anyone who can get on base can attend. He’ll be at the Air Force post exchange from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and at the Army post exchange from 4-6 p.m.
Rumsfeld will not hold a public event outside the military installation.
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