Perhaps the first good thing to come Donald Rumsfeld’s way via the New York Times is his current standing on the bestseller list for his memoir, Known and Unknown, which looks back at his career as Secretary of Defense and reflects on what we can know, what we can’t, and what we should worry about.
In a recent episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Rumsfeld goes into detail on the most significant events and critiques of his time at Defense. He praises the initial attack on Afghanistan, highlighting that it was a completely new military strategy to use special forces as the spear-point rather than depending on mass and material.
Iraq was a more conventional war, and the results tepid due to major intelligence gaps regarding the trustworthiness of Iraqi police and army, the potential for Al Qaeda involvement, the fragility of infrastructure, and more. Rumsfeld refuses to criticize the CIA’s work, instead maintaining that intelligence gathering is tough and that military strategy needs to be ready to adjust.
He balks at the question of politicizing intelligence, instead agreeing with Karl Rove that the worst mistake of their time in office was not going into the offensive on the claims that the administration lied about WMD’s as an excuse to go to war.
Along with greater explanation of his conflicts with Condileeza Rice and Collin Powell, praise for Bush’s surge, and questions on outdated nature of our intelligence institutions, Donald Rumsfeld reacts to his positioning as the villain of the Bush administration. He believes the hostility is a reaction from the public to the glut of information now available about war, and that time will provide some perspective for the decisions he made.
Watch the full episode:
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