Earlier in the war we had received several reports of supposed sightings of both Mullah Omar and bin Laden, which all proved to be false.

At one point I watched a Predator video feed of a tall, lanky man wearing a turban and white robes and surrounded by what looked like an entourage of bodyguards.  Our military command center was abuzz with anticipation.  There was not a doubt in anyone’s mind that the image on the screen was Osama bin Laden.  As they made final preparation to take out the target, something spooked the man we were observing, perhaps an intelligence tip or someone catching sight of our Predator  UAV above.  He took off running like a gazelle over rocky, rugged terrain.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.  Bin Laden was in his midforties in 2001. Intelligence later confirmed that the man we all were absolutely convinced was bin Laden was not.

From Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld

Alan and Judy Gross

Alan Gross was sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban jail for the crime of trying to bring internet access to the Cuban people. The Wall Street Journal reported, “A 61-year-old contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mr. Gross has been held since 2009. His crime was working on a democracy-promotion mission to bring Internet access to dissidents.”

Where is the outrage?

When I learned, for example, that the Pentagon had been spending $225 million every year to maintain our forces in Iceland, I sent a memo to Powell recommending that we make a change.  I pointed out that our aircraft originally had been stationed in Iceland to track Soviet subs in the North Atlantic.  Now that there is no Soviet Union, they were spending their time helping Icelandic fishermen in distress.  More than $2 billion had been spent since the end of the Cold War in 1989 to keep our aircraft in Iceland.  I believed that the $4 billion we would be spending over the next twenty years could be better invested elsewhere.  Even so, it took me three years of pressing and prodding – and the resulting loss of another  $700 to $800 million to taxpayers- before I could get our military presence in Iceland renegotiated. This was accomplished over the continued opposition of the State Department. Iceland was a wake-up call for me.  If it was that hard to change our posture there, changes elsewhere in the world would be even more difficult.

From Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld

I have admired Rumsfeld. He seemed intelligently clear in his press briefings and was able to use humor appropriately.  Yet many in the military were scathingly critical of him and pushed for his resignation.  He was deemed to squelch criticism and dissent, and ignore basic principles of war in spite of warnings.  It was my curiosity to understand this disconnect that made me anxious to read his memoir Known and Unknown.

I realize that such a publication shows the writer’s viewpoint and many will deem it a whitewash before even reading it.  Churchill was quoted “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”  Rumsfeld mused over many of his own mistakes, but was direct in addressing shortcomings in the handling of the Iraq war.

At the center of the problem was friction between the State Department under Colin Powell and Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense(DoD).  When Paul Bremer was appointed as CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority-  Rumsfeld thoughtfully included a list of acronyms at the end) in Iraq after the initial military campaign ended, he was supposed to be under the DoD, yet he communicated more directly with Rice and felt he had direct access to the president without going through his immediate supervisor which on paper was Rumsfeld.  He issued articles in the WSJ and made numerous statements without clearance from Rumsfeld, and often in opposition to the policies as Rumsfeld understood them.  When Rumsfeld pushed to have him report to state rather than DoD he was rebuffed.

The military felt less inclined or qualified to build institutions, schools and other sorts of infrastructure that distracted from the intense focus required of combat operations. General Franks and others felt other departments would handle this better.

Rumsfeld felt that Condoleeza Rice’s background in academics with very little practical government experience was a handicap.  Rumsfeld, in contrast, had experience in government going back to the sixties.  He was the youngest Secretary of Defense under Ford and the oldest under W.  Rice felt the need to bridge differences rather than  highlight them. Her intense loyalty to the president  may have shielded him from debates and points that Rumsfeld felt he should have heard.

And there were repeated instances of major intelligence failures; beyond just the missing WMDs.  The infrastructure in Iraq, for example,  was in much worse shape that they expected.

Yet Rumsfeld did not doubt or question the capability or commitment of any of his colleagues.  Bush had secured some very experienced and capable department heads, but Bush ultimately had to manage them and coordinate their missions and address their disagreements. It appears that too many critical differences were left to linger and take care of themselves.

Harmful leaks to the press were not addressed. And the press itself just got so much plainly wrong; many of these misinformed stories had serious consequences.  Foremost was the story about the abuse of the Koran by flushing it down the toilet at Guantanamo.  The source recanted his story, but not until Time Magazine made it the focus of the demonization of the prison facility.

Rumsfeld memoir is extraordinarily well documented. It would serve as an excellent case study in executive management, and it does an excellent job of documenting the complexities of the administration.  For those who are trying to get an accurate picture of the facts and problems we encountered in the Iraq misadventure,  beyond the mindless demonization of the media and pundits, you may not find all the answers in this volume; but you will find Rumsfeld’s front line perspective to be an essential piece.

Egyptian Youths take to the street

As we try to predict what the outcome will be in Egypt we tend to compare it to the last similar conflict, which many think is Iran. But the mistake in Iran began in 1953 when Mohammad Mosaddegh, a democratically elected popular ruler was overthrown largely by our CIA and replaced with the unpopular Shah. This action combined with the growing tide of Islamic fundamentalism led to the Shah’s overthrow by the Ayatollah. By the time the revolution happened there was not much Jimmy Carter could do about it, as pathetic as his efforts were.

Iran's Mohammed Mossadegh

The wave of unrest throughout the Arab Middle East is also a culmination of religious fundamentalism, poverty (in spite of the oil resources), widespread illiteracy, and a demographic explosion of young people.  In short it is a cultural development that is going in the opposite direction of western modernity, and the economic renaissance of the far east.  We have depended on autocrats to use authoritarian means to keep this backwards cultural shift under control and it cannot longer be contained.  Once again our president can do little to control it .

While many praise the rise of democracy in the Middle East, democracy is secondary to a more civilized and open society.  Our success is based on the true classically liberal values of individual and minority rights, freedom of religion, free speech, the rule of law, and an open society.  It was these values that gave rise to democracy, not the other way around.  Democracy without these values is just mob rule.

The French Revolution took place only a few years after the American Constitutional Convention.  While our new government was just embarking on their noble experiment they must have watched in shock as the French Revolution, originally embracing many of the same values as our delegates,  descended into the reign of terror.

The French Revolution

Our democracy has survived because of the rule of law and common culture that supports the values of an open society.  George Bush ignored warnings about pushing  for elections in Gaza, where the cultural values we associate with a functioning democracy were clearly absent.

Egypt will likely see a conflict between its secular population and its religious fundamentalists such as the Muslim Brotherhood.  With Mubarak out we can hope that the military will affect a stable transition, but we should fear a rise of another radical theocracy.  Egypt has enough national pride that they may resist being anyone’s puppet: ours or Iran’s.

The real power in the Middle East is not in the halls of government where we spend our efforts but in the Mosques where the values of the people have rendered politics almost irrelevant.  As much as we try to separate religion from government this puts our diplomacy at a distinct disadvantage.

This leads us to few good options, but acquiescing to values totally contrary to our own is certainly not one of them.  In the face of such open hostility we must remain committed to the true liberal values (not the bastardized version we face today)  that make democracy work and not fall prey to the democracy of mob rule.  While authoritarian control was not sustainable we should not assume that the people will settle for a religious theocracy either. The internet may be more influential than we realize.  The people in the street may be clear what they do not want, but at some point soon to come they will begin to clarify what kind of country they do want.