Date:   10/22/2003 10:46:16 PM ( 21 y ago)
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Rumsfeld Questions Anti-Terrorism Efforts

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 23, 2003; Page A01

In a private memo sent last week to his closest Pentagon associates, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called into question his department's efforts to win the war on terrorism, and said it might be necessary to fashion "a new institution" that could better focus the government's campaign.


He said the Pentagon had not "yet made truly bold moves" to reshape itself for the ongoing war and said "relatively little effort" had gone into developing "a long-range plan" to defeat terrorism. He also said the United States even lacks a good set of measures to determine how well it is doing in the war.

The two-page memo reveals a blunter, less confident assessment of the anti-terrorism campaign than the largely optimistic statements that Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials have conveyed in public.

Although Rumsfeld's aides portrayed the memo as an attempt to provoke debate and goad the military into further action, many of the same views have been voiced in private by other senior Pentagon officials. Asked about the memo yesterday, Rumsfeld said it grew out of comments he heard in recent meetings with regional commanders.

"The thing about measuring progress in this war is that it's such a fleeting enemy," one high-ranking general said after learning of the memo yesterday. He interpreted Rumsfeld's mention of a possible "new institution" as a reference to discussions about an enhanced interagency task force. "It's something we can't do ourselves," he said.

In the memo, dated Oct. 16 and disclosed yesterday by USA Today, Rumsfeld cited "mixed results" in the fight against al Qaeda, saying "a great many" members of the terrorist network remain at large. He noted "reasonable progress" in Iraq capturing or killing the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein's former government and "somewhat slower progress" in Afghanistan tracking Taliban leaders who had supported al Qaeda.

But efforts to combat the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group, which U.S. officials say has reconstituted in Iraq and probably is responsible for a number of recent attacks, "are just getting started," he added.

The Pentagon leader predicted that U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan would ultimately win "in one way or another." But he said victory would come only with "a long, hard slog."

He sounded considerably less certain about the prospects of winning the larger, longer war on Terrorism -- or even how to measure whether U.S. operations were eliminating more terrorists than radical clerics and Islamic religious schools were producing.

"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing a global war on terror," he wrote.

Rumsfeld raised the possibility of creating "a private foundation to entice" the Islamic schools, known as madrassas, to take "a more moderate course."

Most of the memo consisted of questions rather than specific proposals. It was addressed to four people: Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary; Douglas J. Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy; Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman.

Surprised by the release of the document, Pentagon and White House officials sought to depict it as evidence simply of Rumsfeld doing his job to compel the armed forces to adapt to new threats.

"That's exactly what a strong and capable secretary of defense like Secretary Rumsfeld should be doing," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, traveling with President Bush in Australia
 

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