Reading War and Decision: Part One
Chapters 1-3: The First Days
By Mark I Posted in Afghanistan | Donald Rumsfeld | Douglas Feith | Iraq | National Security | Pentagon | War and Decision | War on Terror — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From its very first pages, War and Decision, Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, takes the conventional wisdom about the war on terror and throws it out the window. Nothing, literally nothing you know about the way that the Bush Administration planned, decided, and executed the United States’ strategy for fighting and ultimately winning the war can stand up to the scrutiny imposed by this consequential book. In twenty years, when historians start to write a dispassionate history of the Bush Administration and its actions, they would do well to start with Feith’s careful, detailed, and surprising account of the issues, decisions, mistakes, and triumphs that America experienced in the early stages of its war against fundamentalist Islamic extremists.
Throughout her history, America has been fortunate to have great leaders at decisive times: George Washington and the Founders; Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II; Ronald Reagan after the decline of the 1970s. America’s democracy, by design or by Providence, always seems to produce a man for his times to steer the nation through turbulence. In the case of the war on terrorism, there was not so much one man--although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership--as there was a particularly important plane trip. On the day after September 11th, 2001, when America had been brought low from the skies by hijacked airplanes used as weapons, it is both ironic and entirely fitting that the germ of the battle plan that would ultimately bring the terrorists to their knees, would begin to take shape in the belly of a military cargo plane en route from Europe to Andrews Air Force Base.
Read on…
On September 11th, Feith was in Moscow participating in return meetings with Russian defense officials, when news of the awful events at the World Trade Center reached him. He recalls realizing that broadcast news would be the best source of information about the goings on back home, a sobering admission coming from the number three man in the Pentagon. When events were finally confirmed in the early evening Moscow time, Feith set about trying to figure out how to get back to Washington. With commercial air traffic grounded across the United States, military transport was the only option. Due to the late hour, it was impossible to get Russian permission for a U.S. military plane to land in Moscow to pick up the Pentagon contingent, a complication that would turn out to have very fortuitous consequences for the nation’s emerging war policy.
By the time Feith boarded the KC-135 tanker bound for Andrews from Germany, he had heard President Bush's early references to the events as an act of war. Out of contact with the White House and the Pentagon, he took it as a given that the United States’ response was going to be far more involved than its previous acts following terrorist strikes. There would be no cruise missile launches in the dead of night this time. The president was taking the nation into battle.
Also stranded abroad on September 11th, and returning to Washington on the same plane as Feith were: Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; his deputy for Near East and South Asia Affairs, Bill Luti; and Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, head of the Strategy and Plans Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four men spent the five hours of the flight comparing notes, and taking new ones, on just what the Pentagon’s policy should be going forward in the post-9/11 world. Key questions that the impromptu group discussed were: Who was the enemy; What should the United States response look like; How would success be measured; Where should strikes take place? The answers to those questions would be put through the bureaucratic ringer in the coming month, as the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and White House decided upon the strategy in the emerging war on terror. Along the way, the answers met with general agreement from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, general disagreement from Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, foot-dragging from CIA Director George Tenet and his intelligence community operatives, and blatant misreporting and mischaracterization from the liberal press.
Faith recounts all of these using quotes from heretofore-unseen internal memos and “snowflakes” emanating from Rumsfeld’s prolific pen in a page turning narrative that destroys the well-heeled notions that the Bush Administration’s war on terror lacked a planning focus and a coherent strategic direction. From September 12th, Feith depicts President Bush as pushing Rumsfeld, who was pushing his staff, to get the answers to the big questions right. That effort led directly to some of the early mistakes in the war, and some of its later successes.
Chapter four begins Feith’s examination of the campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the next installment in this series, the relationship between the big ideas formulated on that September 12th trip back to Washington and the trajectory of the Afghanistan campaign will be explored.
Click on the picture of the book cover to buy a copy of War and Decision.
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Reading War and Decision: Part One 39 Comments (0 topical, 39 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
and look forward to reading it and arming myself with ammunition against the know-nothings (which apparently includes all of us to varying degrees).
Feith has done history a great service. It will be a lot more difficult to paint untruths about this decade and this president with his revelations on record.
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
"although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership"
B/C I would be interested in their arguments.
"there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo." P.J. O'rourke
exacted revenge, libya surrendered w/o a shot, kept economy from deep recession after tech bubble and 911, better gdp etc than in 80s and 90s, roberts alito, jrb owen pryor, no mo 911s-deserves encore mention, europe electing bushes, liberated millions, etc
great presidents
washington
lincoln
fdr
reagan
w
won wars
liberated millions
Thanks to Dubya, the ME is not dominated by islamists
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
agree with the first four presidents. but not W.
"liberated millions" so that they can live under a Shi'ite theocray and be iranian stooges? won wars? we're still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Call me old school, but I prefer winning wars first, and then declaring victory. That's the way we used to do things!
"there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo." P.J. O'rourke
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
If Bush could pull that off, he would deserve to be on the list of great Presidents. However, we are not even close to achieving that goal.
This is not a criticism of Bush, but rather an acknowledgement that Islamism is on the march. Make no mistake, it is still in the ascendancy stage and has not yet peaked.
three. Osama openly operated with state sponsor taliban in afghanistan. Saddam openly financed suicide bombers and harboured abu nidals, etc.
Now, iraqis and afgans fight against the remnants of the above and an economically weakened iran is surrounded.
The enemies of freedom are on the run, pushed into enclaves in mosul and a few cities in pakistan where the locals are against them.
The main problem is in europe.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
moreover, Islamists are on the ascendancy in many ME countries---including places like Turkey that used to be such a great example of a "secular" Muslim country
the enemies of freedom.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
as you paint it.
The government is a hard instrument to wield.
On the one hand, we do a pretty good job at cutting of terrorist funding through various banking regulations.
On the other hand, we give government grants to groups that are unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case.
We are losing the propaganda war. There was supposed to be a ME "radio free Europe" but it ended up broadcasting anti-US propaganda.
Military stuff is important, but as Reagan clearly showed, it is the ideological battle that is most important.
Reagan realized our "soft power" that many on the Bush team disdain. Maybe it was because of his acting background, but it helped us beat the USSR. I think McCain realizes the potential for our soft power to enhance our military power. This is an ideological battle as well as a military one. And we better start fighting both effectively.
"there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo." P.J. O'rourke
Frankly, I think his military background actually hurts him in that regard.
Sue Myrick gets it, but nobody pays any attention to her.
weavils and he didn't have war casualties. He also faced a sane enemy nation state with west europe under direct threat as opposed to oil for food bribed france, et al
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
But Reagan was also much more effective in drawing lines between those who we stand with, and those who we stood against.
Moreover, I am sure you remember the peace movement protests of the 80s? Hundreds of thousands of Europeans took the streets to protest the Pershing II cruise missiles.
Reagan had no Fox News, no Rush Limbaugh, no Internet, no alternative media.
Plus Reagan effectively mobilized the government to put a comprehensive full court press on the USSR.
The US government is actually assisting the Islamists in certain unintentional ways.
Read the link I sent you from the ME Times.
on the basis of recommendations from an anti-American Islamist?
Or allowed anti-American Islamist Imams into prison ministries?
one looks at the dems since 911 and most repubs, there is one thing that is clear
the enemy fears Bush as well they should
after 11/2006 Bush could have folded
he didn't
he beat the dems and continued the killing of evil
and the iraqi people saw that and that is why the surge could work
they finally trusted bush and thta bush could prevent the dems from making america betray them a third time
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
the enemy doesn't like bush but it doesn't fear him. if they feared him so much we would not be fighting anymore and they wouldn't be blowing themselves up all the time.
killing evil? OBL's still tooling around.
I think McCain can do better!
"there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo." P.J. O'rourke
the nukes and end the fighting like we did in wwii. want to do that? wouldn't it have been better if wwii lasted 10 years and we only lost 10,000?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
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www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
and the most important battlefields are figurative battlefields in this case.
Our war should not be limited to AQ. It is a war against Islamo-Facism. Its soldiers are in many places, including the US.
Iraq is important, but it is not all-important.
rounded up 900 visa overstays soon after 911, broke up major cells in the us in 2002-4, and since, told the world that their was no distinction between terrorists and nations that harbour, etc
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Now, iraqis and afgans fight against the remnants of the above and an economically weakened iran is surrounded."
It's hard for Iran to be economically weakened at $120- for a barrel of oil. We did Iran's job for them. Eliminated their #1 enemy, Saddam, and turned Iraq into an Iranian client state.
We got duped by Iranian stooges like Chalabi, who Paul Bremer tried to have arrested as a Iranian spy, but wound up next to Laura Bush for The State of the Union Address. Iran is stronger b/c of the increased price of oil and Iraq now being an Iranian client state. They're also more free to develop WMDs, now that we have most our resources in Iraq and that we have lost some credibility in the International Community.
"there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo." P.J. O'rourke
n/t
yes, it was hard, but when you combine dictatorship, islamic fundamentalism and ONE oil refinery in the whole country, you get
regular and frequent riots and mass demonstrations in the streets the last many years in Iran
or didn;t you know?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
until they were defeated.
Without a shot being fired I would add.
I am a big time consumer of ME news.
Highly recommend http://www.memri.org for watching ME media. Scary stuff.
don't say we don't face a threat now, nor that we will for many years
The Bush way will win it
never show weakness
never surrender
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I suspect that a Goldwater presidency would have avoided the necessity of the Vietnam war.
What you say is good, but how about not funding our enemies domestically in the name of community outreach?
How about not using radical Jihad websites to recruit translators?
We are making so so many mistakes that shouldn't be made.
to.
I'm just saying that we need to open our eyes to the larger game. Just because the libs focus myopically on Iraq does not mean that we can afford to do so.
comes close to his churchill, fdr like resolve, and the main path to victory is
will
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
another way is to say that they attack Americans at the times and places of their choosing, and they run to back to Iran when they need to regroup/rest where they are never touched.
They determine when and where to take us on. We react.
Their guys have safe harbors in Iran. Our guys must always mind for their safety.
In the Art of War, they are playing to win.
We are doing something different altogether.
who wants us to win
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/04/28/score_one_for_the_muslim_brot...
"Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), all three listed by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators, have achieved unprecedented access to the Department of Defense and even the White House.
But aware now of the enemy's stealth and cunning in seeking to influence U.S. national security policy, the nation is obligated to reject his agenda — an agenda that prioritizes concealment until it is too late of the true nature of their campaign of conquest, whether by Dawa (persuasion, including by way of deception) or terrorist attack.
Many millions of Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom have no desire to associate with or support in any way the agenda of Islamic jihadis, are looking for American leadership. They need the commitment of the nation's enormous national resources to this long war because it is their war for existence, too. Millions of Muslims, both U.S. citizens and others, look to American courage of conviction and the will to defend our common belief in universal human dignity to encourage their own desire to speak out, stand up, and seize back the everyday practice of the Islamic faith from those who now control it — and them. Muslims who are humanists, who abhor the violence jihadis derive from Islamic doctrine, need an ally who will encourage them to set aside that doctrine but still remain faithful to a spirit of Islam that is tolerant, not bent on world conquest."
safe havens in Iran
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
How are we in this war since 9/11 and all anyone talks about is Iraq and sometimes Afghanistan?
Take a step back for a second from the domestic battles over Iraq. Aren't you surprised at how little discussion there is of things like what kind of books are used in Muslim schools here in the US? How domestic mosques become radicalized? Where do recruit for Arab translators?
None of these things are anywhere near the public debate. How did this happen?
Well for one thing, Bush has chosen not to talk about such things. For whatever reason, he has not. I think we are remarkably naive about what is going on. I can't believe that people from the Muslim Brotherhood are welcomed guests, or that affiliated groups are receiving grant money for community outreach.
We are remarkably inept at truly distinguishing moderate non-Islamist Muslims from those who are our enemies. There is little discussion of this.
No offense, and I am not blaming Bush for this stuff, but I don't think historians are going to point to this period of time as being particularly successful. We don't have a clue as to even how to properly identify the enemy.
suffered massive setbacks. The best evidence of this is how locals in Iraq and Pakistan have risen up against al qaeda.
and what has NOT happened since 911
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
AQ is but one group. Democrats do that---they focus myopically on the smallest group possible. In their case, they focus on one person.
This war needs to be about Islamo-Facism. The outcomes of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are hardly conclusive.
With the exception of Afghanistan which had a pure Islamist government, it is arguable that Islamist elements in Pakistan and Iraq are stronger now than they were in 2000.
Hezbollah and Hamas are also both stronger than in 2000.
What is happening in Lebanon is a shame, yet it merits barely a mention from President Bush. Lebanon is the best shot for a functioning western style democracy were there is equal treatment of people of different religions.
Honor killings, apostate killings, and other brutality go largely unpunished in Iraq and Afghanistan were the Constitution enshrines Islamis law.
I agree that the instances of locals getting fed up with AQ are bright spots, but I am not sure that they are a fair representation of the big picture.
Europe is in more trouble than we are, but only by about 20-30 years.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODZhZDkyMzc3NDBlNDMxMjM3MDkyOTdlYTU...
...After paying lip-service to the notion that “the terms we use must be accurate and descriptive,” the DHS guidance urges that we drop jihad from our lexicon, despite its being a perfectly accurate description of what al-Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are doing. Why? Because, according to DHS and the “influential Muslim Americans” with whom it consulted, the true meaning of jihad is the subject of honest to goodness dispute. Indeed, DHS, in its best moral equivalence, frames the disputants in this supposed controversy as “polemic[ists]” — rather than, as is actually the case, one group accurately invoking jihad to convey the concept of holy war pitted against another trying, whether out of good intentions or duplicity, to reinvent jihad as the virtuous striving to become a better person.
Not surprisingly, DHS has declined to identify the allegedly “wide variety of Muslim American leaders” with whom it consulted. However motley it may have been, though, it evidently failed to include Muslims whose interpretation of jihad aligns with either Islamic history or the highly touted Dictionary of Islam. As the scholar (and former Muslim) Ibn Warraq observes, the latter defines jihad as “a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad,” elaborating that the Koran and other scriptures establish it as “an incumbent religious duty.”
Nevertheless, it is a safe bet that our government’s influential Muslim Americans included the Muslim Public Affairs Council. MPAC was quick to issue a press release lauding the new DHS guidance and patting itself on the back for both its “regular . . . engagement with government agencies including [the Department of Homeland Security,]” and its long advocacy of a “nuanced approach” that stresses “the importance of decoupling Islam with [sic] terrorism.” Unmentioned, of course, is MPAC’s history of lobbying the government for the removal of jihadist organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the government’s lists of designated terrorist organizations. (The peerless terrorism expert Steve Emerson provides details, here.)
In any event, the ipse dixit about a friendly jihad, just as validly construed to be a virtue as a mortal threat, flows naturally from the ipse dixit at the heart of the DHS guidance: The premise that “many so-called [so-called?] ‘Islamic’ terrorist groups twist and exploit the tenets of Islam to justify violence[.]” (Emphasis added.)
Really? The Koran (which Muslims take to be the verbatim word of Allah) commands, in Sura 9:123 (to take just one of many examples), “O ye who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty unto him.” Does DHS really expect us to believe a terrorist has to “twist” that in order to gull fellow Muslims into thinking Islam enjoins Muslims to “fight those of the disbelievers who are near you, and let them find harshness in you”?
As policy, DHS gives us rose-tinted category error. It confounds Islam with Muslims and non-violence with moderation. There are about 1.4 billion Muslims in the world and the majority of them would not come close to committing a terrorist act. But their rejection of jihadist methods is not an en masse rejection of jihadist goals. Similarly, the belief that America should become a sharia state, which is not all that uncommon among even American Muslims, is not a moderate one, even if a Muslim who holds it is not willing to blow up buildings to make it so. And even if most Muslims resolve the tension between their faith and modernity by choosing to take scriptures non-literally, or by marginalizing their violent directives as relics of a bygone time and place, that makes those Muslims peaceful people; it does not make Islam a peaceful religion. Where combating Muslim terror is concerned, Islam is a hurdle you need to get over, not a means by which you get over the hurdle.
In short, under the guise of prescribing how our government officials should speak “strategically” so as not to offend potential allies in the Muslim world, the new guidance (and, importantly, the government ethos that produced it) is transparently intended to sell Americans on the Islam of DHS’s dreams, not the Islam we actually have to deal with.
Clip of a former government minister from "moderate" Jordan
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1761.htm
Clip of a "moderate" Iraqi intellectual living in Europe
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/336/1313.htm
We have nothing in the ME to counteract this stuff
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1497.htm
are more likely to come from there than the ME, given our actions in the ME and our inability to attack Denmark!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
made a good argument that the Administration did not "lie" but did make errors....but of course Jon Stewart was not having any of that....and his audience being the idiot liberals they are made an embarrassment of themselves...Doug Feith though was having none of that lunacy...he comported himself quite well.
Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion