Bush’s Defense Secretary Goes On the Offensive

As the Army’s top soldier, Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki is accustomed to getting in the door when he wants to tell civilian defense leaders what’s on his mind.

But when Shinseki asked incoming Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld earlier this year for a chance to talk in detail about one of the Army’s most urgent issues--a sweeping Army reorganization now underway--he was told he would have to wait.

So Shinseki waited. And according to aides, he’s still waiting today.

The message from Rumsfeld was unmistakable: I’ll run this department according to my schedule and my wishes.

Since starting his second tour as Pentagon chief, Rumsfeld has shown again and again that he won’t let protocol or personal feelings stand in the way of his determination to reshape one of the world’s most unwieldy bureaucracies.

Rumsfeld has vexed generals, riled Congress and even snubbed a few NATO ministers as he and close advisors have begun crafting a more hawkish defense policy and refining plans to make the notoriously balky department run more like a business.

Rumsfeld came to the Pentagon after succeeding in a series of public and private careers: Navy fighter pilot, four-term Illinois congressman, White House chief of staff, mid-1970s Defense secretary and corporate executive. Now he’s been handed one of the key pieces of the Bush policy agenda, starting with the controversial proposal to build a national missile defense shield, and is being asked to overhaul the strategy for America’s nuclear and conventional forces.

He has already shown that he and the president are in sync on many, if not all, important national security issues.

Yet even some Republicans are asking whether, in his steely determination to find his own way, the secretary may be alienating some of the powerful constituencies he will need to make his reforms succeed.

Frank Gaffney, head of the conservative Center for Security Policy think tank, is enthusiastic about Rumsfeld’s debut. Yet Gaffney says he has been “surprised that there hasn’t been more of an effort to include people” in his big studies.

The Pentagon needs to win support from these groups, he says, since people in Congress and the services “have a chance to screw up whatever the secretary of Defense comes up with.”

And some are asking whether the 68-year-old Rumsfeld has enough appetite for the ceremonial duties that are a central, if wearying, aspect of the position.

Rumsfeld has declined to appear at the U.S. Military Academy commencement June 2 because, says a spokesman, “he’s not a big fan of speeches.” Asked if such appearances weren’t part of the secretary’s job description, the Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, replied: “Well, not this year.”

Reforming the armed forces and Pentagon acquisition practices has been a daunting obstacle for many secretaries of Defense. At the beginning of the Clinton administration, Defense Secretary Les Aspin proposed to change the military strategy that called for the U.S. to be able to fight two regional wars at the same time. But he encountered swift opposition and backed down.

In 1997, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen conducted a major review of military strategy but encountered powerful pressures from Congress and the armed services. He ended up with a plan that critics said largely perpetuated the status quo.

Rumsfeld’s approach has grown from his view that he must begin by making up his own mind about how American defense strategy needs to be reshaped.

He believes--as do many defense experts--that Congress, the military services and weapon makers have often undermined reform efforts to protect their interests.

Rumsfeld, associates say, strongly believes that Congress, in particular, has hurt the Pentagon’s performance by micromanaging its affairs and ordering weapons that the services don’t want.

With this in mind, he launched a series of study panels but restricted access to their work by Congress, the officer corps and industry. And he allowed only limited access to his office.

He sought to limit contacts between the military and Congress by requiring notice and approval before any meetings.

On Capitol Hill and among the services, the result was alarm.

Top officers were unsettled to learn that while they were kept in the dark, Rumsfeld had assigned Andrew Marshall, a 79-year-old defense strategist, to draft a report laying out a conceptual basis for a new strategy.

Marshall’s visionary work on the high-tech future of warfare has won him admiration from a generation of military reformers. But the leaders of the military services fear his view that, in the fast-paced, long-distance wars of the future, heavy land forces, large naval vessels and other current weapons will have a smaller role.

Senior military leaders have “had to go begging, hat in hand, to have a say in these things,” said Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a Vietnam-era Navy pilot.

Cunningham says he remains “not at all comfortable” with an approach that he fears has given an upper hand to defense intellectuals who lack insight into real-life warfare. He says he told Rumsfeld, “If your precepts are wrong, what do you think your conclusions are going to be?”

Aides insist that Rumsfeld has been accessible, considering that he is working nearly 75 hours a week and still has only six appointees confirmed by Congress to help him out. Assertions that he has been unwilling to share information “are just inaccurate,” Quigley insists .

Some senior officers acknowledge that they have recently had more access to Rumsfeld.

Even so, some officers continue to believe that Rumsfeld is holding top uniformed leaders and civilian staff at arm’s length. Some use words like “overbearing”; others believe he simply isn’t comfortable circulating with military personnel.

They note that so far he has had few meetings with the troops. Nor has he made the trips that are customary for U.S. Defense chiefs, such as a visit to the demilitarized zone separating North Korea and South Korea, which tens of thousands of U.S. troops have patrolled over the last half century.

Rumsfeld has confessed he’s also exasperated with the pressure for constant meetings with foreign leaders. He’s tried to eliminate some and delegate others; as a result, even ministers of some NATO countries have been told Rumsfeld was too busy to see them, according to diplomatic sources.

But defense experts say cutting back on personal contacts could come at a cost. Personal relationships often make the difference when, in a crisis, U.S. leaders ask allied ministers for help--such as military support or overflight rights--that is likely to be unpopular at home, experts say.

As Rumsfeld’s debut has unsettled the military, so too has it unnerved some members of Congress.

Many have repeatedly been frustrated in their efforts to learn more about the direction of Rumsfeld’s policy study.

Members of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, for example, invited Rumsfeld to lunch last month to implore him to reveal more about his plans. Rumsfeld was cordial but “noncommittal,” said one aide.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has held up several Defense Department appointments to send Rumsfeld a message that he needs to let Congress in on his plans, congressional aides said.

Congress has grown increasingly anxious about the Pentagon’s slow pace in providing budget information. Details of the fiscal 2002 budget request, usually available in March, may not come until July this year.

Some lawmakers fear Rumsfeld believes that, by presenting the budget late, he can pressure them to approve it without time-consuming debate and changes. But lawmakers say they intend to make whatever changes are required.

As he has scrambled to develop his blueprint and assemble his department, Rumsfeld has had a mixed record in early bureaucratic battles within the administration, in the view of some observers.

He lost out in an early tussle with budget officials over a big supplemental appropriation for the current year.

And, though the circumstances remain very much in dispute, some observers believe Rumsfeld’s order to cease military-to-military contacts with China was countermanded by the White House.

“That’s twice that he’s been jerked back pretty hard by the administration,” said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard magazine who was chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.

In the battle of ideas within the administration, however, Rumsfeld appears to be faring well.

Bush and Rumsfeld seem to be of one mind on missile defense.

In public remarks, Bush has made clear that he agrees with Rumsfeld on the desirability of developing an ambitious, large-scale antimissile shield and in fielding it as soon as possible, even if that means the system is not capable of blocking all the warheads that might hurtle toward the U.S.

And on other key issues that the administration’s national security team is still debating, Rumsfeld’s view may win out.

Bush apparently still hasn’t decided, for example, whether to accept the view of Rumsfeld and others to arm the Iraqi opposition against President Saddam Hussein or whether to embrace Rumsfeld’s hawkish view on China, says Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution scholar and former National Security Council official.

So while it is probably too early to fully judge Rumsfeld’s influence, “on some issues he has clearly won,” and on others “he may still win,” says Daalder. “He is clearly a player.”