EnglishLady
Veteran Expediter
Telegraph Feb 13
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary who sent American forces to war alongside British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, has criticised President Barack Obama for undermining the relationship between the two close allies
"My impression is that the Obama administration is taking steps that at least symbolically have distanced his White House from what I have throughout my career valued as a special relationship," Mr Rumsfeld told The Sunday Telegraph.
"I don't know what it looks like from the other side of the pond, but certainly here it has dramatised the things that the Obama administration has done that are unhelpful to the relationship."
The former defence secretary cited Mr Obama's actions and words, from his early removal of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office to his recent assertion that the US does not have "have a stronger friend and stronger ally" than France.
"It seems gratuitous to me," Mr Rumsfeld said last week in an interview to coincide with publication of Known and Unknown, his 730-page memoir of his time in office under President George W Bush. The book, the latest in a series of insider accounts from those who served in the Bush administration, went straight to number one on Amazon, the online bookseller.
President Obama's glowing reference to French allies was particularly galling for the veteran Republican official who had taken a very different view - dismissing both France and Germany as "problems" and "old Europe" when they opposed the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Mr Rumsfeld, 78, who was the country's youngest Pentagon chief under President Gerald Ford, then returned to the same post 25 years later under Mr Bush, also expressed his concerns about the impact of cutbacks in military spending by America's Nato allies.
Spending on welfare state projects was squeezing out European military expenditure, which now stands at a "historic low" of about two per cent of GDP, he noted.
"It's of concern that pressure for social legislation has been such that it's put downward pressure on defence investment in counties in Nato," he told The Sunday Telegraph, although he added that the alliance's expansion east and partnership with friendly nations was also bringing in extra capability.
It is "a shame" that Britain would be left without an effective "carrier strike" capability – a working aircraft carrier equipped with fighter jets – for a decade under the Government defence and security review, Mr Rumsfeld said.
"Your country has been one of the handful of countries that have had an extremely capable military – in different elements of military capability – and as a seafaring nation, I do understand your questions," he added when asked about the effect of the cuts on Britain's force readiness as a US ally. But he also emphasised the role of intelligence sharing, special operations and unmanned aircraft in an era of asymmetrical terror threats.
As defence secretary for nearly six years under Mr Bush, Mr Rumsfeld became famous or notorious, depending on perspective, for quips and response to media questions that mixed the acerbic, the oblique and the obfuscatory.
It was a rhetorical style that spawned its own terminology – "Rummyisms" and "Rumsfeldian" – and the title of the memoir is drawn from his answer when pressed about the absence of evidence linking Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terrorist groups. The Pentagon chief responded by referring to "known knowns", "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns".
The Donald Rumsfeld giving interviews in a midtown Manhattan hotel suite last week was as defiant and certain of his case as ever, but notably less confrontational and more softly spoken than the figure who once bristled at aggressive questioning.
Wearing his new post-Administration "uniform" of a green sleeveless fleece over an open-necked shirt, he peered out from his characteristic rimless glasses as he contemplated his responses.
There was unapologetic absence of mea culpas. But he expressed regret for another use of words – "stuff happens" – about looting in Baghdad after the war, and acknowledges a "misstatement" when he asserted that the US knew for sure the location of WMD stockpiles in Iraq.
Mr Rumsfeld was reviled on the political Left and also scorned by some on the Right for his handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath. His book however delivers a lengthy defence of his most controversial policies and in the process lays blame at the doors of former Administration colleagues such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state and national security adviser during Mr Bush's first term.
While generally loyal in the extreme to Mr Bush, he does offer a critique of the last president for not managing his advisers better. He also says Mr Bush asked him about the Pentagon's strategy for an attack on Iraq just two weeks after the Sept 11 2001 terror attacks – six weeks earlier than the then president mentioned such a discussion, according to his own memoir.
And he says that his greatest regret was not insisting that Mr Bush accept his offer of resignation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2004. It is also interesting that a man known as a mastermind of America's "war on terror" never actually liked the phrase and tried, unsuccessfully, to come up with a different formulation of Mr Bush's policy.
The book runs thought five decades in the public eye – he won election to Congress in 1962, later served as an ambassador to Nato under President Richard Nixon and then, after the Watergate scandal, as White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford before he was made defence secretary for the first time aged 43.
He went on to another career as a corporate CEO, But inevitably it is the period after he returned to the Pentagon's top job for a second time aged 68 that is the focus of the greatest scrutiny and controversy.
Mr Rumsfeld rejects criticism that the invasion of Iraq was a distraction from the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "He is probably still alive, but he is having a hell of a difficult time functioning" while eluding capture, he says.
For Tony Blair, "the most eloquent public voice" in arguing the cause for war, there is the sort of praise that only the American Right now lavishes. "Top marks in terms of communicating go to Tony Blair," Mr Rumsfeld observed. "He had fibre and courage and knew how to put the English language together. He was most impressive."
But for all the trials and tribulations in the 10 years since the 9/11 atrocities, he does not believe the world is a safer place than the morning that he was at his desk at the Pentagon when it was attacked and he helped pull the injured from the rubble.
Indeed, asked about the next great security crisis that the West will face, he referred to the example of a simulated targeted smallpox attack on the US that could infect three million and kill one million.
"We'll be surprised by something," he said. "And one has to expect that somewhere down the road, the surprise is going to be of considerably greater lethality than has been the previous case... if one marries the viciousness and commitment of terrorist groups, radical Islamicists, with this kind of capability.
"We're not going to be in a short war with Islamic terrorists. They are serious enemies with determination to kill."
Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary who sent American forces to war alongside British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, has criticised President Barack Obama for undermining the relationship between the two close allies
"My impression is that the Obama administration is taking steps that at least symbolically have distanced his White House from what I have throughout my career valued as a special relationship," Mr Rumsfeld told The Sunday Telegraph.
"I don't know what it looks like from the other side of the pond, but certainly here it has dramatised the things that the Obama administration has done that are unhelpful to the relationship."
The former defence secretary cited Mr Obama's actions and words, from his early removal of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office to his recent assertion that the US does not have "have a stronger friend and stronger ally" than France.
"It seems gratuitous to me," Mr Rumsfeld said last week in an interview to coincide with publication of Known and Unknown, his 730-page memoir of his time in office under President George W Bush. The book, the latest in a series of insider accounts from those who served in the Bush administration, went straight to number one on Amazon, the online bookseller.
President Obama's glowing reference to French allies was particularly galling for the veteran Republican official who had taken a very different view - dismissing both France and Germany as "problems" and "old Europe" when they opposed the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Mr Rumsfeld, 78, who was the country's youngest Pentagon chief under President Gerald Ford, then returned to the same post 25 years later under Mr Bush, also expressed his concerns about the impact of cutbacks in military spending by America's Nato allies.
Spending on welfare state projects was squeezing out European military expenditure, which now stands at a "historic low" of about two per cent of GDP, he noted.
"It's of concern that pressure for social legislation has been such that it's put downward pressure on defence investment in counties in Nato," he told The Sunday Telegraph, although he added that the alliance's expansion east and partnership with friendly nations was also bringing in extra capability.
It is "a shame" that Britain would be left without an effective "carrier strike" capability – a working aircraft carrier equipped with fighter jets – for a decade under the Government defence and security review, Mr Rumsfeld said.
"Your country has been one of the handful of countries that have had an extremely capable military – in different elements of military capability – and as a seafaring nation, I do understand your questions," he added when asked about the effect of the cuts on Britain's force readiness as a US ally. But he also emphasised the role of intelligence sharing, special operations and unmanned aircraft in an era of asymmetrical terror threats.
As defence secretary for nearly six years under Mr Bush, Mr Rumsfeld became famous or notorious, depending on perspective, for quips and response to media questions that mixed the acerbic, the oblique and the obfuscatory.
It was a rhetorical style that spawned its own terminology – "Rummyisms" and "Rumsfeldian" – and the title of the memoir is drawn from his answer when pressed about the absence of evidence linking Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terrorist groups. The Pentagon chief responded by referring to "known knowns", "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns".
The Donald Rumsfeld giving interviews in a midtown Manhattan hotel suite last week was as defiant and certain of his case as ever, but notably less confrontational and more softly spoken than the figure who once bristled at aggressive questioning.
Wearing his new post-Administration "uniform" of a green sleeveless fleece over an open-necked shirt, he peered out from his characteristic rimless glasses as he contemplated his responses.
There was unapologetic absence of mea culpas. But he expressed regret for another use of words – "stuff happens" – about looting in Baghdad after the war, and acknowledges a "misstatement" when he asserted that the US knew for sure the location of WMD stockpiles in Iraq.
Mr Rumsfeld was reviled on the political Left and also scorned by some on the Right for his handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath. His book however delivers a lengthy defence of his most controversial policies and in the process lays blame at the doors of former Administration colleagues such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state and national security adviser during Mr Bush's first term.
While generally loyal in the extreme to Mr Bush, he does offer a critique of the last president for not managing his advisers better. He also says Mr Bush asked him about the Pentagon's strategy for an attack on Iraq just two weeks after the Sept 11 2001 terror attacks – six weeks earlier than the then president mentioned such a discussion, according to his own memoir.
And he says that his greatest regret was not insisting that Mr Bush accept his offer of resignation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2004. It is also interesting that a man known as a mastermind of America's "war on terror" never actually liked the phrase and tried, unsuccessfully, to come up with a different formulation of Mr Bush's policy.
The book runs thought five decades in the public eye – he won election to Congress in 1962, later served as an ambassador to Nato under President Richard Nixon and then, after the Watergate scandal, as White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford before he was made defence secretary for the first time aged 43.
He went on to another career as a corporate CEO, But inevitably it is the period after he returned to the Pentagon's top job for a second time aged 68 that is the focus of the greatest scrutiny and controversy.
Mr Rumsfeld rejects criticism that the invasion of Iraq was a distraction from the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "He is probably still alive, but he is having a hell of a difficult time functioning" while eluding capture, he says.
For Tony Blair, "the most eloquent public voice" in arguing the cause for war, there is the sort of praise that only the American Right now lavishes. "Top marks in terms of communicating go to Tony Blair," Mr Rumsfeld observed. "He had fibre and courage and knew how to put the English language together. He was most impressive."
But for all the trials and tribulations in the 10 years since the 9/11 atrocities, he does not believe the world is a safer place than the morning that he was at his desk at the Pentagon when it was attacked and he helped pull the injured from the rubble.
Indeed, asked about the next great security crisis that the West will face, he referred to the example of a simulated targeted smallpox attack on the US that could infect three million and kill one million.
"We'll be surprised by something," he said. "And one has to expect that somewhere down the road, the surprise is going to be of considerably greater lethality than has been the previous case... if one marries the viciousness and commitment of terrorist groups, radical Islamicists, with this kind of capability.
"We're not going to be in a short war with Islamic terrorists. They are serious enemies with determination to kill."
