Bob Woodward

by State of Denial (lit)

  8

  two days after Clark's interview, he was summoned by Rumsfeld. Clark was looking for some affirmation that he was Rumsfeld's guy, but when he walked into the room, he could feel it was all edge. It wasn't that he and the secretary did not have a cordial working relationship or that they did not get along, it was that the meeting immediately went to the heart of the matter.

  Well, Rumsfeld said, you had the meeting with the president.

  Clark said it had been a good, healthy exchange, but it had reinforced his concern. My reservations remain the same, Clark said. I told the president the most important thing about this selection was not the relationship between the military guy and the president, but the relationship between the military guy and the secretary of defense. And I held as the model what I had observed between Colin Powell and Dick Cheney. And the president asked me if I had such a relationship with you and I said not yet.

  Rumsfeld seemed less impatient than usual, so Clark asked about beliefs. What did Rumsfeld actually believe? I'm not going to be able to be your chairman and stand up in front of the world as your senior military adviser arm in arm with you until I know what you believe.

  Rumsfeld had all these studies floating around—on weapons systems, strategies, war plans, personnel—you name it. There were 18 task forces doing studies. Clark felt some of the studies were ridiculous, but he inquired more gently about them, particularly one that suggested all wars could be won from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, home of the B-2 bomber, which, with airborne refueling, could fly 50-hour round-trip bombing missions nonstop to the other side of the world. Another Rumsfeld study similarly suggested that war could be conducted from over the horizon, hundreds if not thousands of miles away, without forward deployment of forces. The Navy was about forward deployment, having the aircraft carriers and fleets on station out in the oceans near and in the face of trouble. Did Rumsfeld think that everything could be fixed by putting crosshairs on targets from great distances?

  Rumsfeld didn't respond. He seemed really dumbstruck. Clark thought all the studies—the beehive of activity, the tyranny of the urgent—had overwhelmed Rumsfeld. He did not know the details or did not have enough of a strategic understanding to engage comfortably in a discussion about shaping the military.

  Do you think you're going to change the face of history and deal with every potential enemy the nation has and never get any dirt under your fingernails? If that's what you believe in, Clark challenged, you and I are not going to be able to work together because we don't believe the same things.

  We haven't done any of that stuff yet, Rumsfeld said dismissively. He was knee-deep in studies and plans. Transformation meant new thinking, and he wanted to make sure he cast a broad net, went deeply into matters and wirebrushed everything.

  Clark asked about the chiefs and their role, particularly the role of the Joint Staff. The Joint Staff is a national treasure, Clark said, and the secretary tended to undervalue it, even malign it. Clark said that he believed Rumsfeld was dead wrong on that score.

  Rumsfeld scoffed again. What they provided was not worth the paper it was written on, he said, and it wasn't timely or useful. Why does the chairman need a head of policy, or a spokesman, a liaison to the Congress or a lawyer? Rumsfeld asked repeating his earlier comments to Shelton. Why shouldn't he use my lawyer?

  Clark said that the chairman was interfacing with the military leaders of the world. The chairman by law was a member of the National Security Council. He is asked to put forward opinions on policy questions every time you guys go to a principals meeting, the meetings of the NSC principals without the president.

  Rumsfeld bristled.

  If you select me as chairman, Clark said, I will fully embrace the responsibilities to be the military adviser to the president. The job included providing independent advice. If we disagree, of course I'll want my position to be made known because that's the way the law's written.

  Rumsfeld wasn't really responding and he clearly did not want to have this discussion. Clark started to push his chair back.

  Well, I would have to be the secretary of defense for four years and write my book, Rumsfeld replied sarcastically, before I'd know the answers to all those questions.

  Well, Clark answered, you and I both know that that's not what I'm talking about. He stood up.

  I guess there's no use talking about it much further, Rumsfeld said.

  I agree, Clark said, turned on his heels and left. He immediately went to see Shelton.

  I burned my bridges today, the Navy chief said, and described the meeting in its full agony and glory. I'll never be chairman.

  Yep, Shelton said with a chuckle, I guess you won't.

  Later I asked Rumsfeld about Clark. Terrific guy, he said. But the question of Clark becoming chairman was apparently a touchy subject, because when I said that I understood General Shelton had recommended Clark, Rumsfeld said, I don't know that.

  We then got into a verbal wrestling match.

  You don't believe he made that— I began.

  I didn't say I believed it or didn't believe it, Rumsfeld said. I said I don't know that. I'm very precise. If you say something that I don't remember, I'm not going to say it's wrong and I'm not going to say it's right. I'm going to say I don't know that.

  Okay.

  And I don't, he said.

  You don't recall, so you—

  I don't recall it, he finally said, answering the question. Of Clark he said, He didn't seem to want it. He was very engaged in the Navy, doing a terrific job, and I didn't have the feeling that he was leaning forward, anxious to do that. Clark was high on his list and the president knew that, he said, but I kind of like someone who wants to do something, because these are tough jobs and you take a lot of stuff. And it strikes me that someone needs to be leaning forward and want to do it. And I had the sense that maybe Vern didn't.

  I inquired if Clark had said that under the law as chairman he would have to give independent military advice to the president.

  Oh sure, Rumsfeld said. That comes up always, and I obviously agree with that. That's what the law is. Absolutely. Not just to the president, but to the National Security Council.

  Do you remember a real clash with him?

  Oh, not at all.

  About four days after Clark's bridge-burning meeting with Rumsfeld, on Saturday, August 11, The Washington Times, the conservative daily newspaper in the nation's capital, ran a front-page story headlined, Admiral Called Front-Runner for Joint Chiefs; Clark Is Said to Impress Bush.

  The report by Rowan Scarborough, who had good contacts in the Bush administration, went so far as to say, One well-placed source said last night that Adm. Clark is Mr. Bush's pick. Noting that Clark is deeply religious, a source was also cited saying that Clark resembles Vice President Cheney in appearance and businesslike demeanor.

  Clark was playing golf that morning at Andrews Air Force Base. He was on the ninth hole and one under par, one of the best games of his entire life, when his wife, Connie, called his cell phone. I went out and bought this paper and the headline says you are the front-runner to be the chairman, she said, adding that their home phone was ringing off the hook.

  Clark promptly hooked his drive out of bounds, took another shot, sliced it out of bounds and wound up with a triple-bogey.

  On August 24, 2001, outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President Bush introduced his selection to be the next chairman. The president's remarks focused on training, equipping, manning and transforming the military. Secretary Rumsfeld and I thought long and hard about this important choice, and we enthusiastically agree —Air Force General Richard B. Myers. Bush promised that he would work closely with Myers, who will make sure the military's point of view is always heard in the White House.

  Rumsfeld had told Bush and Cheney that in the end Clark wanted to remain Navy CNO, so they picked Myers.

  Clark was on leave with his wife when they heard Bush's announcement live. Rumsfeld reached
him in the car to tell him the news firsthand and thank him for going through the process. It was a very cordial conversation.

  Wow, Clark said to his wife. That was nice.

  Myers, 59, with president-of-the-student-council good looks, was gentlemanly and controlled. Raised in Kansas, he had graduated from Kansas State with a mechanical engineering degree before joining the Air Force in 1965 as the Vietnam War was escalating. He flew F-4 Phantom fighter jets in combat on dangerous low-level missions over North Vietnam attacking ground targets. On a second tour, he flew so-called Wild Weasel missions against North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile systems. He had spent four years as head of the Space Command and then served one and a half years as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs. To friends, he acknowledged that he coveted the chairman job.

  Shelton was disappointed. As he had long suspected, it looked like Rumsfeld wanted a chairman in name only. The selection meant that when it came to the hardest of decisions there would be no one in the uniformed military positioned and supported by law to provide alternative advice to the president and stand up to Rumsfeld. From all the debates during the first months of the new administration, it looked like the most important issues were how to build a missile defense system, what military hardware to buy, and how to reorganize and modernize the force. Time and energy were almost exclusively directed at those problems, and they had been the focus of Bush's remarks introducing Myers.

  But Shelton knew better. He had served in Vietnam and been the assistant division commander for operations of the 101st Airborne during the 1991 Gulf War. The really hard decisions were about the use of military force—under what strategy and plan, what types of force, when, how much, against what enemies or threats. The decision to go to war defined a nation, not just to the world but to the nation itself. War was the core reason for the military's existence. Those decisions could mean the death of thousands. The 1.4 million men and women of the United States armed forces counted on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs as their representative at the table when the president and the National Security Council weighed and debated such matters. With Myers, Shelton worried, the voice would be muted, silenced.

  General John P. Jumper, a fighter pilot who had been military assistant to two secretaries of defense, was sworn in as the Air Force chief of staff—the equivalent Air Force position to Admiral Clark at the Navy and General Jones in the Marines—on September 6, 2001.

  Welcome to the most disappointing group you'll ever be associated with, Jones told Jumper as he took his seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Military advice is compromised by the political leadership. It doesn't emerge.

  The Myers announcement came 18 days before September 11, 2001. He had been truly surprised to be picked. He had met with Bush and Cheney several times for 15- or 20-minute interviews, where the subjects had been transformation and whether he could work with Rumsfeld. Bush and Cheney had asked questions to make sure he could step outside his Air Force uniform. To his recollection, they did not discuss war or what might have gone wrong in Kosovo or Vietnam.

  Myers got along with Rumsfeld, but they had had several heated exchanges. He believed that Rumsfeld overstated to make his points. One day Rumsfeld had gone after the Pentagon procurement system. He wouldn't stop. We've got to reform this. This is just terrible, Rumsfeld said.

  Time out, Myers interjected. That's wrong. You're wrong. But then he had the Myers way of softening the blow by half agreeing. Okay, Mr. Secretary, that may all be true, and certainly our system isn't very good. In many respects it needs to be fixed. Then he shifted to the good side of the system, adding, On the other hand, we produce the world's best military equipment. Everybody wants our stuff, so there's got to be something inherently good about the way we develop things, our whole system that develops things from the concept and the operational requirements to the time it comes out the hangar door or the plant door.

  Myers's selection had leaked to cable television news, but he didn't really believe it, telling reporters who called, What do you guys know? But a couple of hours later Rumsfeld called and said, We've selected you to be chairman. The president selected you to be chairman. He gave no reason why they had chosen him and Rumsfeld immediately jumped into a discussion about who should be the new vice chairman. They quickly decided on Marine General Peter Pace, a low-key 1967 Naval Academy graduate and veteran of Vietnam and Somalia.

  As chairman, Myers found Rumsfeld so hands-on that he would confide to one of his senior aides at times that he wondered why he was even there. When they went to the White House, it had all been rehearsed. They achieved what Myers called a mind meld, which meant that Myers adapted his mind to match Rumsfeld's. Many senior officers, including some service chiefs, saw Myers functioning as the senior military assistant to Rumsfeld.

  Andy Card, who attended all the principals and NSC meetings, was struck that Rumsfeld and the chairman tended to opine in the same voice. It was an echo, and he could not recall an instance when the chairman's advice challenged Rumsfeld's. There were a few times he found himself thinking to himself that it was significant that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs wasn't saying anything. The silence might mean the chairman disagreed but they would never know.

  At the end of a long interview with Myers in his office at the Pentagon on January 9, 2002, four months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I asked him for help in decoding Rumsfeld.

  If I could do that, my blood pressure would be a lot lower, he said. Maybe it had been a particularly difficult day, but Myers put both his arms on the small table and then laid his head down on top of them. I could not tell if it was a sign of exasperation or despair or something in between. I had not seen this before—a senior officer cradling his head in his arms.

  Myers quickly stood up. The storm, whatever its cause or intensity, had passed. But it was a statement I would remember, a snapshot of life as it really was in the Rumsfeld Pentagon.

  I wrote a book on the Afghanistan War and the response to 9/11, and another on the decision to invade Iraq. In the course of the research I interviewed dozens of the key players, including the president, and reviewed notes of many of the highest-level internal deliberations and National Security Council meetings. Myers is there, making an occasional comment, at times even briefing, only to have his points embarrassingly repeated by Rumsfeld. It was as if the secretary hadn't listened to what the chairman had said.

  At times Myers inquired of close aides if they thought it possible Rumsfeld might leave. The answer was always no. Myers would just shake his head or put his head down.

  Rumsfeld was intimately involved in filling the key positions on the Joint Staff. If Rumsfeld wanted someone and Myers said he couldn't live with the choice, Rumsfeld generally would drop the candidate and find someone else he wanted. But he insisted on a veto over the choice assignments. At one point, Myers wanted someone on the Joint Staff, and Rumsfeld had his own candidate. It frustrated Myers to death as they went to their separate corners and there was a little standoff.

  The dispute lay dormant for about three weeks. Out of the clear blue while riding the escalator up in the Pentagon one day, Rumsfeld brought it up.

  If you could just give on this one, I'd appreciate it, Rumsfeld said.

  Myers realized he was saying, I'm not going to budge, and I'm the boss. Of course, Rumsfeld got his way. And Myers later explained, We serve the civilian masters and the chain of command. Unless it's illegal or immoral or unethical, you do it. If you can't stand it, then you've got other options. You can retire.

  During the first year Rumsfeld gave Myers a copy of an article dating from the Nixon administration. JCS Chairman Admiral Thomas H. Moorer's representative to the NSC staff had been caught spying on the White House and passing secret documents back to the Pentagon.

  Hey, Rumsfeld said, this is something that might be interesting to you.

  Myers couldn't believe it. He felt trapped in Rumsfeld's process, endless meetings and discussions. Once he came into the Tank
for a meeting with the chiefs looking absolutely destroyed.

  Had to do two hours up there, Myers said in near despair, and listen to all that bullshit all over again. And I've got to go back up there. I'm sorry, guys, but I got to go back up there again at five minutes till, and we just don't have long here.

  Myers took to undoing his cuffs and scratching his arms compulsively, and he became so oblivious that some of the chiefs thought he didn't even know he was doing it. At times he would stare off in the corner of the Tank like he wasn't there and he didn't care what they were doing or talking about.

  When Myers was exasperated he called Rumsfeld that son of a bitch or that asshole. Half a dozen times people saw him just put his head down on the conference table in the Tank in frustration, much as I had seen him do in his office.

  It was an irony that Rumsfeld had set up a system that did not ensure that he receive warnings from the uniformed military about rosy scenarios like those that had been promised from Vietnam to Kosovo. Strong, forceful military advice was bleached out of the system. The uniformed military was now just staff, its voice a polite whisper. Rumsfeld thought he had won. He was in control.

  9

  over the summer of 2001, Israeli-Palestinian cease-fires had been declared, then broken. In August, the Saudi Crown Prince watched on television as an Israeli solider pushed and then stepped on an elderly Palestinian woman. According to the Saudi version of the story, he called Bandar to carry a message to the White House. Bandar went to see Bush on August 27.

  Mr. President, Bandar began, this is the most difficult message I have had to convey to you that I have ever conveyed between the two governments since I started working here in Washington in 1982. He recounted at length the many meetings Bush or Cheney or Powell had had with the Crown Prince.

  Mr. President, Bandar read with a straight face, leadership in Saudi Arabia always has to feel the pulse of the people and then reflect the feeling of its people in its policies.