Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [357]
Need more troops and, if so, where and for what purposes.
Would be better off with fewer US troops (where) and doing less of what types of activities.
Would be better off with the same (larger or smaller) number of troops, but refocusing coalition efforts to put X% (i.e., 10%? 50? 90%?) of our forces on the tasks of organizing, training, equipping, and mentoring Iraqi Security forces.
Should cut back dramatically on US-only patrols and focus most of their efforts on joint patrols and/or mentoring Iraqi Security forces.
Put more coalition forces [on] Iraq’s borders (with Syria? Iran? and/or [in] Baghdad? Mosul? other?), but remain available to conduct raids throughout the country as required.
Should establish a larger presence in the relatively secure North and South, and less coalition presence in the Sunni Triangle.
Other.13
I wanted candor, which is why I was willing to accept anonymous responses in case less senior officers might be hesitant to express views that differed from their immediate superiors. The lives of our troops and the success of the war were at stake, so mine was as serious an inquiry as one could make. I wanted to reach down the chain of command to find what more junior officers were thinking. I did not receive any responses that they wanted more forces or that they disagreed with the strategy.
I also had in mind my recollections of the U.S. involvements in Vietnam and Lebanon. In both cases I had observed that local populations, if permitted, would lean more and more on Americans to solve their problems. In the end, the South Vietnamese and the people of Lebanon were left vulnerable and relatively defenseless when American public support for these missions eroded and the United States pulled out.
I was concerned that U.S. and coalition forces might inadvertently discourage Iraqis from taking on increased responsibility for bringing order to their country. Having the United States as a crutch might delay the hard work required for them to build a safe and stable society appropriate to their circumstances. I sometimes used the analogy of teaching someone how to ride a bicycle. After you run down the street steadying the bicycle by holding the seat, you eventually have to take your hand off the seat. The person may fall once or twice, but it’s the way he learns. If you’re not willing to take your hand off the bicycle seat, the person will never learn to ride.
Never much of a handwringer, I don’t spend a lot of time in recriminations, looking back or second-guessing decisions made in real time with imperfect information by myself or others. In my press conferences I did not always conceal my lack of regard for hindsight “wisdom.” While in office, I resisted answering the frequently asked, breezy, politically loaded questions, along the lines of “What do you regret most?” or “What do you wish you had done differently?” or “Was this or that a mistake?”
A secretary of defense has to be careful about what he says in public. His comments can affect troop morale or limit the president’s options in the future. Nonetheless, officials need to periodically reexamine their own views and judgments. Human beings are fallible, and the information policy makers use to make their judgments is always incomplete, imperfect, and ever changing. The assumptions that underlie strategy can become stale or even proved wrong to begin with. It sometimes requires exquisite balancing skills to be properly skeptical and yet open to criticism in internal deliberations, while not suggesting to allies or enemies abroad that one is adrift or lacking confidence in a policy.
The senior Department advisers were accustomed to receiving skeptical “big think” snowflakes from me. I did this periodically—for the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the global defense posture realignment, major alliance management issues, transformation, and other significant activities. When one of these internal memos urging a reassessment of our strategy in the