WASHINGTON, 23 October 2003 — US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioned in a bleak memo made public yesterday whether the Defense Department is changing fast enough to succeed in the war on terrorism.
Larry DiRita, the Pentagon’s acting spokesman and a special assistant to Rumsfeld, confirmed the authenticity of the memo published by USA Today but said it was intended to prompt Pentagon leaders to look beyond Iraq and Afghanistan at the larger picture of the war on terrorism.
“These are clearly big questions that deserve big thinking,” DiRita told reporters.
Dated Oct. 16, the memo set forth a series of questions that Rumsfeld put to combatant commanders as well as comments which suggest he has deeper doubts about the progress of the war on terrorism than he has let on publicly.
The memo comes as Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials are making a concerted effort to highlight the progress US forces and occupation authorities have made in Iraq.
“Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get’?” Rumsfeld asks in the memo. “It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog,” he said.
The memo was addressed to Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.
