Rumsfeld's 'Slice of History'

In an interview, the former secretary of defense explains how Washington feuds harmed Iraq policy, and why the surge was less vital than you think.

KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

'I'd read other folks' books about things I'd been involved in . . . and I'd think, 'My goodness, that's not my perspective,'" chuckles former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in an interview last Friday. "I remember talking to [former Secretary of State] George Shultz and he said, 'Don, that's the way it is. Everyone has their slice of history and you need to write yours one day so that it is part of the records.'"

History, meet Mr. Rumsfeld's view. With today's release of "Known and Unknown"—the 78-year-old's memoir of his tenure as defense secretary under George W. Bush and Gerald Ford, his years in the Nixon administration and his three terms as an Illinois congressman—"Rummy" is offering his slice of history. As befits a man who has spent decades provoking Washington debate, his chronicle is direct and likely to inspire some shouting.

The usual Rumsfeld critics (including some in the Bush family circle) are rushing to categorize it as a "score-settling" account, but that's a predictable (and tedious) judgment. At the heart of Mr. Rumsfeld's book is an important critique of the Bush administration that has been largely missing from the debate over Iraq. The dominant narrative to date has been that a cowboy president and his posse of neocons went to war without adequate preparation and ran roughshod over doubts by more sober bureaucratic and strategic minds.

What Mr. Rumsfeld offers is a far more believable account of events, one that holds individuals responsible for failures of execution. He describes a White House with internal problems, at the heart of which was a National Security Council overseen in Mr. Bush's first term by Condoleezza Rice. Ms. Rice's style of management, argues Mr. Rumsfeld, led to indecision, which in turn led to the lack of a coherent post-invasion plan, to a sluggish transfer of power to Iraqis, and to a festering insurgency. If nothing else, this gives historians something valuable to ponder as they work on an honest appraisal of the Bush years.

Mr. Rumsfeld tells me that he sees his 815-page volume as a "contribution to the historic record"—not some breezy Washington tell-all. In his more than 40 years of public service, he kept extensive records of his votes, his meetings with presidents, and the more than 20,000 memos (known as "snowflakes") he flurried on the Pentagon during his second run as defense secretary. Mr. Rumsfeld uses them as primary sources, which accounts for the book's more than 1,300 end notes. He's also digitized them so readers and historians can consult the evidence first-hand at www.rumsfeld.com.

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And yes, he has every intention of using this material to change history's view of past controversies—some that go way back. One example: The book notes a "particularly stubborn . . . myth": the charge that, as White House chief of staff, Mr. Rumsfeld pushed President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as CIA director, in order to banish a rival. Mr. Rumsfeld cites the memo he provided the president—"at [Ford's] request"—evaluating the strength of CIA candidates. It shows that, in fact, he placed the elder Mr. Bush "below the line" on his list—meaning, he was not a "top recommendation" (ouch).

Mr. Rumsfeld devotes an early chapter to his meditations on the purpose of the National Security Council (NSC), accompanied by his judgment that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did a poor job of airing and debating substantive disagreements between the State and Defense departments. Rivalries between State and Defense are nothing new, yet Ms. Rice's most "notable feature" of management, writes Mr. Rumsfeld, "was her commitment, whenever possible, to 'bridging' differences between the agencies, rather than bringing those differences to the President for decisions."

"Condi Rice is a very accomplished human being," he says in our interview, and "she had an academic background. Blending things and delaying things is okay in the academic world. She developed a very strong relationship with the president, which is critically important. And yet one of the adverse aspects of the way things functioned—and I wouldn't use the word 'dysfunction'—is that things did get delayed, and the president didn't get served up, in a crisp way, options that he could choose among."

The memoir relates notable instances when this dynamic played out, but none with more consequence than the muddled plan for postwar Iraq. The Defense Department pushed early on "to do what we'd done in Afghanistan"—where a tribal loya jirga had quickly anointed Hamid Karzai as leader. "The goal was to move quickly to have an Iraqi face on the leadership in the country, as opposed to a foreign occupation." Mr. Rumsfeld's early takeaway from NSC meetings was that "the president agreed."

Yet Colin Powell's State Department was adamantly opposed. It was suspicious of allowing Iraqi exiles to help govern, claiming they'd undermine "legitimacy." It also didn't believe a joint U.S.-Iraqi power-sharing agreement would work. These were clear, substantive policy differences, yet in Mr. Rumsfeld's telling, Ms. Rice allowed the impasse to drag on.

The result was the long, damaging regency of Paul Bremer as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority—which Mr. Rumsfeld believes helped inspire the initial Iraq insurgency. Mr. Bremer, who set up shop in one of Saddam's opulent palaces, continued to postpone the creation of an Iraqi transitional government. He instead appointed a "governing council" of Iraqis but refused to give even them any responsibility. The result: delays in elections and in building post-Saddam institutions.

"You are always better having a president look at each option, at the pros and cons, and make a decision among them, than trying to merge them," says Mr. Rumsfeld, especially when positions are "contradictory to a certain extent."

Mr. Rumsfeld also faults today's Washington culture, with a hyperaggressive Congress and more "litigious society." During his earlier Washington years, recalls Mr. Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger wrote clear memoranda outlining "the pros and cons" for the president. But in the modern NSC there's a reluctance to write things down—lest it land in an investigation.

The lack of clear decision-making also led to blurred authority, which Mr. Powell's State Department used to get the upper hand in turf battles. Ms. Rice used it too, in late 2003, to wrest more personal control over postwar operations via her "Iraqi Stabilization Group"—a job for which Mr. Rumsfeld writes that Ms. Rice and her staff did not have "the interest or skill."

Officially, Mr. Bremer reported to Mr. Rumsfeld. But he "viewed himself as the president's man, had a background in the State Department, and a relationship with Condi Rice," says Mr. Rumsfeld. So Mr. Bremer chose what guidance he preferred, which Mr. Rumsfeld describes as the equivalent of having "four or eight hands on the steering wheel." Critical issues—whom the U.S. should support, who should have power, how quickly to turn over authority—lingered. I ask Mr. Rumsfeld why he didn't simply fire Mr. Bremer. He says he couldn't. Mr. Bremer was "a presidential envoy" and served at Mr. Bush's pleasure.

Mr. Rumsfeld somewhat shields the president in his book. When the president was brought options, insists Mr. Rumsfeld, "he was perfectly willing" to make decisions. Then again, the book makes clear that Mr. Bush was aware of the ugly conflicts between State and Defense. And there's no getting around Mr. Bush's responsibility as wartime manager and Ms. Rice's boss.

Mr. Rumsfeld is less blunt about his own department's mistakes, though he does sidle into them. One question is why it took so long to replace Gens. George Casey and John Abizaid, on whose watch the Iraqi insurgency grew. Mr. Rumsfeld's memoir notes that no one on the NSC or the Joint Chiefs had recommended they be removed by the autumn of 2006, Mr. Rumsfeld's last months on the job. Yet he does acknowledge a visit in September of 2006 from retired Gen. Jack Keane, a key architect of the surge, who warned that the two generals were not "sufficiently aware of the gravity of the situation." When I ask Mr. Rumsfeld if they were indeed left in Iraq too long, he concedes: "In retrospect, you could make that case."

He isn't as willing to acknowledge that he was slow to address Iraq's insurgency. It was never one insurgency, he says, but rather it "evolved, and took different shapes." The first wave, he says, was "Saddam and his Baathists attempting to regain power" aided by "criminals" whom Saddam had released from jail. Then came the influx of terrorists—"facilitated through Damascus"—coming to fight against Americans. Al Qaeda joined the fray, as did a Shiite uprising under Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. "We couldn't lose any battles over there, but we couldn't beat them militarily," he says. "Because there was no one to beat. It was a totally unconventional asymmetrical circumstance."

Mr. Rumsfeld thus takes an unorthodox view of the significance of President Bush's surge, which began to take effect in early 2007. He argues that by 2006 things were, in fact, improving in Iraq. The Anbar Awakening—which Mr. Rumsfeld credits as beginning in the fall of 2006—"had convinced a lot of Sunnis they didn't want to be associated with al Qaeda," and "the government of Iraq was evolving the ability to take on some of the radicals" with the help of Iraqi security forces that had become "very capable."

As a result, he argues, the force of President Bush's surge was as much "psychological" as anything else. "The president's decision galvanized the opinion in Iraq. It said: 'Look, if you think it is going to go to the insurgents, you are wrong.'" The fact of the statement, argues Mr. Rumsfeld, mattered as much as did the increase of troops "tactically or strategically."

Though viewed by many as the spear of Mr. Bush's "freedom agenda," Mr. Rumsfeld also expresses misgivings about "nation-building." He disagrees with the "Pottery Barn rule"—attributed to Mr. Powell—that "if you break it, you own it," arguing Iraq was already broken under Saddam. While he acknowledges that the U.S. had security obligations to Iraq, he expresses discomfort with Mr. Bush's broad promises for democracy, and he worries that countries too frequently develop an overreliance on the U.S.

This is part of his answer when I ask what went wrong (again) in Afghanistan. He notes that committed "Islamists" don't just "disappear." "We've given them a chance, a good chance, to fashion a country that can have the kind of security that the Taliban didn't permit. The Afghan people have to decide."

Mr. Rumsfeld's critics are bitter that his memoir didn't go the obvious commercial route, serving up a grand apology for his role in the wars. Yet readers might be appreciative to find themselves in possession of a serious memoir, more in keeping with the older Washington tradition of Dean Acheson or Henry Kissinger. As might the historians.