March 20, 2001: Rumsfeld Begins Transformation of Defense Department

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld begins his vaunted transformation of the functions of the Defense Department by issuing the first in the “Anchor Chain” series of “snowflakes,” or unsigned memos from Rumsfeld. The memos are written by Rumsfeld and annotated and edited by, among others, Rumsfeld’s personal assistant Stephen Cambone, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The first memo is a sprawling, overarching combination of mission statement, fix-it lists, and complaints, reflective both of Rumsfeld’s sincere ambitions to cut through the bloated and unresponsive military bureaucracy, and his more personal desire to run the US military from his office. Rumsfeld fells that congressional oversight cripples the ability of the military to spend what it needs to on getting buildings built and weapons systems constructed. He complains that talented officers skip from one assignment to another every two years or so, too fast to “learn from their own mistakes.” He complains that the military “mindlessly use[s] the failed Soviet model: centralized government systems for housing, commissaries, healthcare and education, rather than using the private sector competitive models that are the envy of the world.” This apparently is the origin of the “privitization” of the military’s logistical systems that will come to fruition with Halliburton, Bechtel, and other private corporations providing everything from meals to housing for military personnel both in Iraq and in the US. Forgetting, or ignoring, the fact that the Defense Department has repeatedly demonstrated that it will squander billions if left to its own devices, he complains that Congressional oversight so hampers the department’s functions that the Defense Department “no longer has the authority to conduct the business of the Department. The maze of constraints on the Department force it to operate in a manner that is so slow, so ponderous, and so inefficient that whatever it ultimately does will inevitably be a decade or so late.” Without transforming the relationship between the Defense Department and Congress, he writes, “the transformation of our armed forces is not possible.”[O]ur job, therefore, is to work together to sharpen the sword that the next president will wield. [Woodward, 2006, pp. 26-27]