Rumsfeld's Musings

May 13, 5:56 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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Recent reporting that the Pentagon had coached "message force multipliers", current and ex-military figures presented to the media as experts on the Iraq war, has led to a slew of Pentagon documents being released. 

One of the documents includes the minutes of a lunch time meeting between many of these men with then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. 

Some highlights from the minutes:

• Rumsfeld admitting that in Iraq, the U.S. "can't lose militarily, but...can't win by military means alone".  (I would call that prescient)
• An agreement that Iraq could use a Syngman Rhee-type dictator
• A lengthy passage where Rumsfeld jokingly offers a bottle of champagne to anyone who could kill Moqtada al Sadr

Secretary Rumsfeld was asked what the ramifications of a Democratic controlled Congress may be following the 2006 elections.  It led to this troubling exchange:

(Lt. Gen. Michael) DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

Since I wrote a post earlier today criticizing Republicans for deliberately misconstruing Barack Obama's words about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I'm a little reluctant to pile on.

That said, Secretary Rumsfeld's comments do not seem ambiguous to me.  It certainly seems he's saying another terrorist attack on the U.S. would be beneficial in raising "threat perception", a good thing in Rumsfeld's mind.

I don't know how anyone might consider another attack a "correction".