Rumsfeld faces big choices in second tour at Pentagon

The time will come in this new administration when the military doctrine of overwhelming force and a quick exit, espoused by Secretary of State Colin Powell, will be found wanting. Some international crisis will call for a show of force, or a measured use of it--or, perhaps an operation in which victory is not guaranteed. When any of that happens, Donald Rumsfeld will have to make it work. On this second tour as Secretary of Defense--his first one ran only 14 months from Nov. 20, 1975, to Jan. 20, 1977--Rumsfeld will find that he has help. Today's military leaders act as if the Persian Gulf War fought 10 years ago was the last hurrah for the Powell Doctrine. They see the early part of the 21st century as a twilight zone of half-war, half-peace in which the Patton-style armor sweeps of Desert Storm will not deter, influence, or win tribal-style conflicts. A forward presence to deter wars, and a quick response to influence them, have become the American military's top priorities. As a result, the Army will ask Rumsfeld for extra billions to get lighter and faster for the non-Desert Storms it sees in its future; the Navy, more shipbuilding money to maintain its forward presence in distant trouble spots; the Air Force, aerial tankers and high-tech gear to enable President Bush to project military power worldwide from U.S. bases; the Marine Corps, hundreds of V-22 Osprey troop taxis to get its troops ashore faster and the Joint Strike Fighter to give the assault force its own air cover. Military planners in the Pentagon have been working day and night on their services' wish lists for new hardware in the belief that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Rumsfeld will ask Congress to raise the defense budget for fiscal 2002 way above the $310 billion former President Clinton has proposed. The military's hoped-for add-ons for 2002 alone stand at $90 billion, which would be on top of an extra $10 billion or so they seek for the current fiscal year. If such a huge request should clear Rumsfeld and go to Bush, the new Administration is bound to be forced into an internal guns vs. butter debate. Bush has named education and tax cuts among his top priorities. Such expensive domestic goals cast doubt on whether Bush will be as generous to the generals and admirals as they now expect. Rumsfeld, whether he endorses the military wish lists or slashes them, has certain advantages in asserting himself as boss of the biggest enterprise in the world. For one thing, no matter how big or small the Pentagon budget turns out to be, the new Defense Secretary will be restructuring the armed forces by addition rather than subtraction-always an easier and more popular process. For another, he is a Navy veteran, giving him credibility with the brass even though his 40 months of active duty time, like Bush's, were all spent stateside. Third, much of his first year at the Pentagon will be taken up with studies that will postpone controversial decisions, such as what kind of aircraft to buy or what kind of anti-missile umbrella to build. One of his biggest challenges as Defense Secretary will be to persuade the Joint Chiefs of Staff to support publicly, especially before Congress, the President's national security policies, particularly national missile defense, and possibly some military weapons in space-stands that dismay advocates of arms control. Here again, Rumsfeld has advantages. In Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, Rumsfeld has a compliant Joint Chiefs Chairman. Shelton questions the wisdom of spending up to $100 billion on national missile defense when our enemies have so many other easier and cheaper ways of attacking the United States, such as firing mortar shells filled with germs or poison gas from a boat in New York Harbor. But Shelton will not buck Rumsfeld on this issue, and he is on board for the current missile testing program. Besides, Shelton is scheduled to leave office in September-well before the controversial deployment phase begins. Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney can then pick a new Joint Chiefs Chairman to their liking. On Jan. 23, his second day on the job, Rumsfeld had his first collective meeting with the chiefs and reminded them quickly who is the boss. He ordered the services to stop briefing members of Congress on perceived money shortages, something they had been doing in great detail just before the new broom installed himself on the Pentagon's third floor. Rumsfeld, the veteran Washington operative, evidently sensed an end run. Former aides portray Rumsfeld, 68, as an effective backroom player who, while congenial in public, keeps things close to his vest in public and in private. And he wins his battles, one case in point being his success blocking former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's arms control efforts. Outsiders, notably the Pentagon press corps, have not been as impressed with Rumsfeld's performance. On the basis of his 14-month tour, Pentagon reporters in a survey conducted by Armed Forces Journal in 1979 voted him the worst Defense Secretary up to that time; they voted fellow Republican Melvin R. Laird, formerly a Congressman from Wisconsin, the best. Those positive and negative assessments aside, what kind of inner convictions will Rumsfeld bring to his second tour as the Pentagon chief? His congressional record while representing Illinois' 13th District (Chicago) from 1963-69 offers clues. Examples:

• Human rights. "If the United States is to retain its leadership in the struggle against Communism, it must demonstrate courage and firmness and an unequivocal stand for basic human rights," Rumsfeld said on June 15, 1964. He sponsored a resolution that same year condemning Soviet persecution of Jews. If he hews to this philosophy as Defense Secretary, he might well find himself battling Powell on the use of military force to stop the kind of "ethnic cleansing" that afflicted Bosnia and Kosovo. Kenneth Adelman, a Republican conservative who formerly headed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and was a deputy to Rumsfeld at three of the new Secretary's previous government posts, told National Journal that "there will be times" when Bush will have to ignore the Powell Doctrine and order a show of force. Adelman noted that former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger is actually the one who laid down the restrictive rules for use of the military, although the philosophy later became known as the Powell Doctrine.
• Guns vs. butter. Like Cheney, his one-time White House deputy, Rumsfeld was generous toward the military and stingy on domestic programs while in the House. Rumsfeld voted to require states to pay more of the cost of such federal programs as food stamps for the poor and the cleanup of waterways. In 1966, he was one of only 38 Republicans to vote against increasing the minimum wage from $1.25 to $1.60 an hour. He also opposed spending federal money to establish the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, and he opposed such Great Society initiatives as Medicare, mass transit, and anti-poverty programs. He generally favored market incentives over outright federal grants of money-a conservative philosophy expected to shape his recommendations to Bush on how best to help economically stricken Russia.
• Pentagon waste. He will take a hard line here, as evidenced by his blasting of the Army in 1965 for wasteful procurement practices at its Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey and for punishing whistle-blowers. During the Vietnam War-on Aug. 30, 1966-Rumsfeld told his House colleagues that it "is beyond me" why the huge contract awarded to Brown and Root of Houston and other U.S. firms to build air fields and other facilities in South Vietnam "has not been and is not now being adequately audited. The potential for waste and profiteering under such a contract is substantial." During his recent confirmation hearing, Rumsfeld was visibly distressed when Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., recounted how the Pentagon-which spends $500,000 a minute-does not know where many of its billions go. "I decline the nomination," Rumsfeld quipped after Byrd finished his rundown. Rumsfeld is expected to insist on better accounting within the Pentagon and tighter contracts for the defense industry.
• All-volunteer military. He criticized the draft during the Vietnam War and was at the forefront of those pressing to replace it with a volunteer system, a switch that occurred in 1973. The armed services will find him an enthusiastic backer of doing whatever it takes, be it more recruiters or advertising dollars, to fill their ranks with high-quality people.
• War Powers Act. He believed while a lawmaker that Congress, especially the House, should have a larger say in military and foreign affairs. He declared, for example, on March 18, 1968, while the Vietnam War was raging: "The executive needs parcels of extraordinary power to deal with extraordinary situations. However, I question whether the executive should have the range of powers in the range of situations that is the case today." Three years earlier he said: "Congress must be able to do more than merely nod yes or no to presidential proposals-whether out of apelike obedience or uninformed obstinacy."
• Building public support for military operations. "The point, I think, that I feel so strongly about is the fact that certain people of this country, in order for them to support something, requires that there is an understanding of it," Rumsfeld said on July 10, 1967. Although he may still feel that way, and may give that advice to Bush, Rumsfeld himself did not use his Pentagon perch as a bully pulpit the last time he was Defense Secretary. He also was extremely cautious in interviews, according to reporters who covered him.