Rumsfeld's Style, Goals Strain Ties In Pentagon
'Transformation' Effort Spawns Issues of Control
By Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 16, 2002; Page A01
When Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold was preparing earlier this year to leave his position as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his boss, Gen. Richard B. Myers, nominated an Air Force officer to succeed him.
But when Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Lt. Gen. Ronald E. Keys would be the next director of operations, or "J-3," one of the most important jobs in the U.S. military, he got a rude surprise. Not so fast, said Rumsfeld, who in a sharp departure from previous practice personally interviews all nominees for three-star and four-star positions in the military. Give me someone else, Rumsfeld told Myers after twice interviewing Keys.
Myers complied and came up with a selection more to Rumsfeld's liking, Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, ending a long-standing practice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs naming his own top subordinates.
Senior military officers now recount Keys's demise to illustrate a pronounced civilian-military divide at the Pentagon under Rumsfeld's leadership. Numerous officers complain bitterly that their best advice is being disregarded by someone who has spent most of the last 25 years away from the military. Rumsfeld first served as secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977, in the Ford administration.
Indeed, nearly two dozen current and former top officers and civilian officials said in interviews that there is a huge discrepancy between the outside perception of Rumsfeld -- the crisp, no-nonsense defense secretary who became a media star through his briefings on the Afghan war -- and the way he is seen inside the Pentagon. Many senior officers on the Joint Staff and in all branches of the military describe Rumsfeld as frequently abusive and indecisive, trusting only a tiny circle of close advisers, seemingly eager to slap down officers with decades of distinguished service. The unhappiness is so pervasive that all three service secretaries are said to be deeply frustrated by a lack of autonomy and contemplating leaving by the end of the year.
Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed for this article.
His disputes with parts of the top brass involve style, the conduct of military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and sharply different views about how and whether to "transform" today's armed forces. But what the fights boil down to is civilian control of a defense establishment that Rumsfeld is said to believe had become too independent and risk-averse during eight years under President Bill Clinton.
What makes this more than a bureaucratic dispute, however, is that it is influencing the Pentagon's internal debate over a possible invasion of Iraq, with some officers questioning whether their concerns about the dangers of urban warfare and other aspects of a potential conflict are being sufficiently weighed -- or dismissed as typical military risk aversion.
The dispute also promises to have a huge impact in the coming year over the fate of hugely expensive weapons systems, with Stephen A. Cambone, a top Rumsfeld deputy, now recommending more than $10 billion in savings by cutting or delaying the Air Force's F-22 stealth fighter, the Navy's next generation aircraft carrier, and three Army programs, the Comanche reconnaissance helicopter, the Stryker wheeled combat vehicle and the Future Combat System.
These tensions were straining relations between the uniformed military and Rumsfeld prior to Sept. 11, 2001, but were partially submerged by the Afghan war and other counterattacks on terrorism. They have now reemerged as the Pentagon plans for a possible war in the Persian Gulf and for a fiscal 2004 budget that is in danger of being swamped by war costs and long-deferred expenditures on modernization, new weapons and Rumsfeld's desire to transform the military into a 21st-century force.
"There is a nearly universal feeling among the officer corps that the inner circle is closed, not tolerant of ideas it doesn't already share, and determined to impose its ideas, regardless of military doubts," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute who has close ties to defense contractors and the military.
"All of the bad blood of last year is coming back in a very big way," said one former Pentagon official.
All three service secretaries were recruited from private industry to bring "best business practices" to the Pentagon and promised autonomy in making management reforms. But all three find their actions constrained by Rumsfeld and what is referred to as his small "palace guard," according to Pentagon insiders.
Air Force Secretary James Roche has felt he lacked input on decisions about the service's centerpiece program, the F-22, senior officers and defense contractors say. Navy Secretary Gordon England has expressed an interest in a top job at the proposed Department of Homeland Security, and Army Secretary Thomas E. White, a former executive at Enron Corp., has been tarnished by the Enron scandal, his failure to promptly divest his Enron holdings, and a controversy over his use of Army aircraft for personal business.
Presiding over a Pentagon thick with tension is an ironic position for an administration that came to office promising to show new respect for the military. In Congress and elsewhere in Washington, some now are questioning whether the military feels free to give its best advice to the administration -- or whether that advice is being welcomed.
"I've heard repeatedly about the lack of trust between the secretary and the uniformed officers," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former Army officer who commanded an infantry company in the 82nd Airborne Division. "That, I think is a problem," particularly, he added, with the administration contemplating an invasion of Iraq.
"If there is an atmosphere where contrary views aren't well received, you may move into an operation that isn't well-advised," a three-star officer warned.
Myers, in an interview, denied that he or any other senior officers feel constrained in speaking their mind to Rumsfeld or raising objections about pending military operations. "It has never been easier to express our opinion, our thoughts, with any secretary," Myers said. "There is ample opportunity, in fact, encouragement, to present other views and disagree. . . . I think it's very, very healthy."
Victoria Clarke, Rumsfeld's spokeswoman, cited a series of "spectacular accomplishments" at the Pentagon -- a new defense strategy, a nuclear posture review, a restructured missile defense program, far more realistic budgeting procedures, and an ambitious agenda for "transforming" the military -- and said they simply could not have happened without close civilian-military relations.
"It's extraordinary that those things got done, in the face of amazing resistance to change, at the same time we were prosecuting the war on terrorism," Clarke said, adding that Rumsfeld "not only welcomes, but encourages, dissent."
Rumsfeld's Revolution
While issues of great substance lie at the heart of Rumsfeld's unsettled relationship with the military, discussion of the current environment at the Pentagon invariably begins with assessments of the defense secretary's powerful personal style.
Even Rumsfeld's detractors admit he is a man of considerable energy and intellect who is pushing the right issues and raising many of the right questions at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld, 70, is universally praised for his handling of the war in Afghanistan, where he and other members of the Bush Cabinet insisted on a bold plan for toppling the Taliban and driving al Qaeda out of the country.
What appears at times to be indecisiveness on Rumsfeld's part, according to one senior officer, stems from his deep personal involvement in operational planning. "The guy wants to see [a plan] at the 30 percent level, and the 60 percent level, so it's become a very iterative process, and it's been hard for the bureaucracy to adjust to that," the officer said. "It's good in the sense that the man is talented and has tremendous insight into the political process. The only time it's bad is having" to make decisions rapidly in the context of ongoing operations.
But the result, said one White House aide, is that "it's hard to get decisions out of the Pentagon, because he doesn't delegate."
It has become a truism in national security circles that Rumsfeld has been a better secretary of war than secretary of defense. Rumsfeld has two dominant priorities. The first is reshaping the U.S. military from a heavy, industrial-age force designed in the Cold War to an agile, information-age force capable of defeating more elusive adversaries anywhere on the globe.
Rumsfeld's second priority, about which he has been less open, is reasserting civilian control over a military establishment that had grown autonomous -- and, many believe, too cautious -- during the Clinton years. Indeed, Rumsfeld has pushed throughout the war on terrorism for bolder plans from the military. Under his stewardship, war planning has become far more effective and imaginative, said a former official who otherwise is critical of Rumsfeld.
"This guy really is trying to get [the Pentagon] to work for him," said one former defense official. "I don't think he's chosen the right path. But it's not a question of him being the devil and everyone else is a misunderstood angel."
If Rumsfeld returned to the Pentagon in January 2001 predisposed to see senior military officers as dull and uncreative, as many believe, he has since shown a willingness to reassess their capability. Officers, even those unhappy with Rumsfeld's approach, say relations between his office and the uniformed branches have improved as both sides have come to better understand how to interact, thanks in part to the crucible of the war in Afghanistan.
"Rumsfeld has changed over time. He's still cantankerous, but he's not necessarily as combative as he was at one point in time," one three-star officer said. "There is more mutual respect."
Others are far more pessimistic. "Things are more fouled up [at the Pentagon] than I've ever seen them," said one former defense official sympathetic to Rumsfeld.
"The depth of disaffection is really quite striking," added one defense consultant. "I think Rumsfeld is courting a rebellion."
Two other people who have dealt with Rumsfeld said there is still a glass bowl in the secretary's office. Rumsfeld likes to tell people that if he says anything nice about anyone, a coin is put in the bowl. Rumsfeld likes to point out that the bowl is almost always empty. It puzzles some generals that he would take pride in such a hard-line approach.
"It is," said one, "a heck of a way to run an organization."
Joint Staff in the Cross Hairs
Rumsfeld's primary objective in reasserting civilian control over the Pentagon has been in reining in a Joint Staff that the defense secretary, according to associates, believed had become too powerful and independent of civilian control, with officers acting at times as though they were not subordinate to their civilian bosses.
The Joint Staff, an umbrella organization that draws from all four services, consists of about 1,200 officers and other personnel and plays a critical role in overseeing the daily activities of the U.S. military around the world. The staff works for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Rumsfeld has made it clear that, in his Pentagon, the chairman works for him.
Since Rumsfeld's first tour as defense secretary in the mid-1970s, the Joint Staff has grown enormously in power and capability. During the Ford administration, it was something of a backwater where the services placed officers considered second-rate. But after the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act greatly empowered the chairman, making him the formal leader of the Joint Chiefs and explicitly the principal military adviser to the president, the staff began getting the best the services had to offer, in part because that law barred officers lacking "Joint" time from becoming top generals or admirals.
Rumsfeld, say people who have dealt with him over the last two years, saw the Joint Staff as sometimes unresponsive to civilian leadership, even asserting its own policy positions at interagency meetings. He wasn't alone in that feeling, recalled one officer at the Pentagon, who said that Joint Staff officers sometimes seemed to have the attitude that "the suits don't need to know this, they stay in our lane, we stay in ours."
Under Rumsfeld, the civilians are no longer cut out.
Rumsfeld, early on, tried to gain control over the key position of director of the Joint Staff, the person who helps determine the daily agenda of the U.S. military leadership. When his move to oust the incumbent met opposition, he backed down. But he succeeded in making the point that the defense secretary would be intimately involved in deciding who filled the top positions. And he prevailed when it came time this year to pick a new J-3 to replace Gen. Newbold, who had told colleagues he found the job deeply frustrating partly because of Rumsfeld's constant bypassing of the Joint Staff.
Rumsfeld made it clear that he did not feel Keys, the general first nominated by Myers to succeed Newbold, was suited for the job. One three-star officer said Rumsfeld considered Keys unimaginative, while a four-star officer said the defense secretary considered Keys arrogant.
"He has been relentless and aggressive in putting these guys in their place," concluded one former Pentagon official. Myers also has come in for criticism from other generals who think he has failed to stand up to Rumsfeld, and some point to the Keys nomination to make their case.
"In the Rumsfeld Pentagon, the chairman works as staff to the secretary of defense," the former official added.
Myers said he has heard such complaints but that he finds them voiced by officers who do not understand the closeness of the relationships that exist between him and Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
"I think the relationship between the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense staff is really very good and very close, and also has matured over time," Myers said. "If I didn't feel like I had my say to my boss and had an opportunity to be influential, I wouldn't be here."
At the moment, Rumsfeld is working to strip the Joint Staff of a series of its offices -- legislative liaison, legal counsel and public affairs. These have given the military leadership a degree of autonomy by providing it direct pipelines to Congress, to other parts of the government and to the media.
Clarke, Rumsfeld's spokeswoman, denied Rumsfeld has singled out the Joint Staff in an attempt to diminish its power. "The secretary thinks the entire department, civilian and military, was lethargic, bureaucratic, not fully addressing the dramatically changed world in which we find ourselves," she said. "And he has appropriately lit fires under everybody and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the stakes around here are very high.' And some people respond well to that and some people don't."
The Army in Opposition
The biggest battle facing Rumsfeld is with the Army, the nation's largest military service, which effectively has gone into opposition against the secretary of defense.
The Army, for institutional and historical reasons, is the most skeptical of the services of Rumsfeld's drive to move the military into the information age. Rumsfeld has complained that the Army is too resistant to change, while Army officers claim the defense secretary does not sufficiently appreciate the value of large, armored conventional ground forces.
"Does he really hate the Army?" asked one Army officer, obviously pained by the question. "I don't know."
The relationship, never close, hit the rocks when Rumsfeld let it be known in April that he had decided to name Gen. John M. Keane, the Army's vice chief of staff, as its next chief, 15 months before its current chief, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, was scheduled to retire. This immediately made Shinseki a lame duck and undercut his ambitious "transformation" agenda, which he had set forth in late 1999.
"I do feel that this secretaryship has been very hard on this chief and has undermined his ability to bring about the kind of transformation that Shinseki envisioned," said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee. "Clearly there's a need for some repairing of relations between the department and the Army."
Next, Rumsfeld killed the Army's new mobile howitzer system, the Crusader, on grounds that it was too heavy to deploy to distant battlefields and not "transformational" enough to be relevant on the future battlefield.
Army leaders had coveted Crusader for years as a weapon system that would finally make the Army second to none in artillery firepower. They were particularly steamed at how Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz killed the system, keeping the Army in the dark about what was happening until Congress was ready to vote on the fiscal 2003 budget.
In recent weeks, another dispute has arisen, with officials in Rumsfeld's office expressing concerns about the effectiveness of the new Stryker wheeled combat vehicle designed to replace the tank in the latest Army fighting unit called the Interim Brigade Combat Team. Cambone, Rumsfeld's closest aide, has proposed cutting in half the Army's plan to field six of these combat teams, saving $4.5 billion in Stryker procurement.
The Interim Brigade Combat Team is Shinseki's bridge between the heavy Army of the Cold War and the Army of the future. But Cambone is also zeroing in on two programs at the heart of that future Army, or Objective Force, proposing a 50 percent cut in the Army's Comanche helicopter and a two-year delay in fielding its Future Combat System.
But Rumsfeld's office, aided by former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who is close to Rumsfeld and deeply interested in how to reform the Army, is now questioning whether Stryker measures up.
"The mood is so morose these days" in the Army, concluded a retired general.
Already on edge, Army generals were dismayed when some Republican defense experts suggested that invading Iraq would be easy. And on top of everything else, the Army now is trying to figure out how it would supply tens of thousands of troops to keep the peace in Iraq should President Saddam Hussein be ousted in a U.S. invasion.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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