Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Rumsfeld II: My view

One reader, old Obie Stephen Saideman, commented that I shouldn’t just leave General Myers’s view, expressed at a conference at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, hanging out there without offering my own thoughts. I thought about that, and I agree. This is what I would say: Calling Rumsfeld a former wrestler who liked to ...

trix0r/flickr
trix0r/flickr
trix0r/flickr

One reader, old Obie Stephen Saideman, commented that I shouldn't just leave General Myers's view, expressed at a conference at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, hanging out there without offering my own thoughts. I thought about that, and I agree.

One reader, old Obie Stephen Saideman, commented that I shouldn’t just leave General Myers’s view, expressed at a conference at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, hanging out there without offering my own thoughts. I thought about that, and I agree.

This is what I would say:

Calling Rumsfeld a former wrestler who liked to take an adversarial stance is indeed an alibi. Wrestlers face each other in a ring with a referee, on a fairly equal basis. Rumsfeld did not. Rather, I think he tended to bully people. It is one thing to chew out a subordinate who has to take it, but in my experience, Rumsfeld was very uncomfortable when dealing with people who didn’t have to suffer him in silence. For example, with reporters who challenged him (like me), instead of happily going along for the ride, he tended to become snappish and sarcastic. Likewise, he seemed to squirm sometimes in congressional testimony, where he was the one who generally had to grin and bear it.

So yes, I should have thrown the bullshit flag, especially on Admiral Giambastiani, who was glib when he should have been serious.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

More from Foreign Policy

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China

As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal

Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.
A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust

Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.