10 November 2006
RUMSFELD - THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT LISTEN
By Christopher Hitchens
IS IT only five years since the society columns in Washington were describing Donald Rumsfeld as “hot”, and printing stories about how ladies of a certain age wanted his phone number?
The aplomb he displayed during the campaign in Afghanistan, and the way he seemed to enjoy his press conferences, were just the tonic that the country appeared to need after the humiliation and panic of 11 September.
It didn’t hurt that the Secretary of Defence had been seen in his shirt-sleeves, helping direct rescue operations after a plane ploughed into the Pentagon.
As the Taliban fled and Afghans greeted American soldiers as liberators, the escape of Osama bin-Laden was a detail that could be taken care of later, and “Rummy” seemed able to do no wrong.
By this month, it seemed not only that he could do nothing right, but that everything that had gone wrong was his fault.
Surveying the hell that is today’s Baghdad, who can avoid wincing at his offhand remark that “stuff happens?” The situation would be just as bad if he had not said that, but his breezy refusal to face facts had come to symbolize an Administration that did not learn from its mistakes.
Or from its crimes – the horrors of Abu Ghreib and the lawlessness of Guantanamo and “extraordinary rendition” also became associated with a Rumsfeldian smile that began to look more like an irritating smirk than a confident grin.
He once told me that he was the only man in Washington who was still doing the same job as he was doing 30 years ago (he was at the Pentagon under President Ford) and that cadets whose graduation he had once attended were now wearing four stars. This ought perhaps to have led him to “bond” better with the soldiers under his command, but the fact is that his subordinates came to resent him.
Stories emerged from the office about his reluctance to listen, about his outbursts of bad temper, and about the now-legendary “snowflakes” – the blizzard of memos with which he showered the building. Rumsfeld is essentially a businessman, and many CEOs have the fond illusion that government departments, and even wars in faraway countries, can be run in the same way as a firm.
It is already obvious that his plan for a leaner and more streamlined military will enter the history books as a calamitous refusal to deploy enough troops to stay any possible course in Iraq.
One does not get a second chance to make a good first impression, and it now looks as if almost everything that went wrong in Iraq went wrong right from the start. This might possibly have been forgivable or correctable, but the continuing under-estimation of the insurgency (and the wave of the hand with which the Iraqi army was dismissed) will always be remembered, as will the complaints from serving soldiers that they were not issued with things – such as body-armour – which a thoughtful chief executive might have been expected to have provided for them.
Much is made of Rumsfeld’s earlier career as a wrestler: a sport in which pinning is all and compromise superfluous. These qualities could actually be very useful in wartime, but not if the original strategy is mistaken. A good wrestler is supposed to be able to use the opponent’s strength against him: something the United States has experienced in reverse in Iraq.
The last time I attended a Rumsfeld briefing, I got a slight glimpse of the problem.
To every question or suggestion or criticism, he responded as if it was a brilliant idea that exactly confirmed what he had just been saying. After a while, this stopped being curious and became slightly alarming. The Secretary of Defence, it occurred to me, had plenty of body-armour but it was protecting him from seeing or hearing anything that he didn’t like.
This is a quality that can get you a long way – including a very long way in the wrong direction.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair
Print Close
RUMSFELD - THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT LISTEN
By Christopher Hitchens
IS IT only five years since the society columns in Washington were describing Donald Rumsfeld as “hot”, and printing stories about how ladies of a certain age wanted his phone number?
The aplomb he displayed during the campaign in Afghanistan, and the way he seemed to enjoy his press conferences, were just the tonic that the country appeared to need after the humiliation and panic of 11 September.
It didn’t hurt that the Secretary of Defence had been seen in his shirt-sleeves, helping direct rescue operations after a plane ploughed into the Pentagon.
As the Taliban fled and Afghans greeted American soldiers as liberators, the escape of Osama bin-Laden was a detail that could be taken care of later, and “Rummy” seemed able to do no wrong.
By this month, it seemed not only that he could do nothing right, but that everything that had gone wrong was his fault.
Surveying the hell that is today’s Baghdad, who can avoid wincing at his offhand remark that “stuff happens?” The situation would be just as bad if he had not said that, but his breezy refusal to face facts had come to symbolize an Administration that did not learn from its mistakes.
Or from its crimes – the horrors of Abu Ghreib and the lawlessness of Guantanamo and “extraordinary rendition” also became associated with a Rumsfeldian smile that began to look more like an irritating smirk than a confident grin.
He once told me that he was the only man in Washington who was still doing the same job as he was doing 30 years ago (he was at the Pentagon under President Ford) and that cadets whose graduation he had once attended were now wearing four stars. This ought perhaps to have led him to “bond” better with the soldiers under his command, but the fact is that his subordinates came to resent him.
Stories emerged from the office about his reluctance to listen, about his outbursts of bad temper, and about the now-legendary “snowflakes” – the blizzard of memos with which he showered the building. Rumsfeld is essentially a businessman, and many CEOs have the fond illusion that government departments, and even wars in faraway countries, can be run in the same way as a firm.
It is already obvious that his plan for a leaner and more streamlined military will enter the history books as a calamitous refusal to deploy enough troops to stay any possible course in Iraq.
One does not get a second chance to make a good first impression, and it now looks as if almost everything that went wrong in Iraq went wrong right from the start. This might possibly have been forgivable or correctable, but the continuing under-estimation of the insurgency (and the wave of the hand with which the Iraqi army was dismissed) will always be remembered, as will the complaints from serving soldiers that they were not issued with things – such as body-armour – which a thoughtful chief executive might have been expected to have provided for them.
Much is made of Rumsfeld’s earlier career as a wrestler: a sport in which pinning is all and compromise superfluous. These qualities could actually be very useful in wartime, but not if the original strategy is mistaken. A good wrestler is supposed to be able to use the opponent’s strength against him: something the United States has experienced in reverse in Iraq.
The last time I attended a Rumsfeld briefing, I got a slight glimpse of the problem.
To every question or suggestion or criticism, he responded as if it was a brilliant idea that exactly confirmed what he had just been saying. After a while, this stopped being curious and became slightly alarming. The Secretary of Defence, it occurred to me, had plenty of body-armour but it was protecting him from seeing or hearing anything that he didn’t like.
This is a quality that can get you a long way – including a very long way in the wrong direction.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair
Print Close
No comments:
Post a Comment