Rumsfeld memos: snowflakes from a man at war. I am seeing very little. To all those struggling to please their boss—to decipher what exactly needs to be “FIXED ASAP” or why exactly the TPS reports need cover sheets at all—allow me to introduce you to Douglas Feith. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. How do you possibly respond to these prompts? ", The Department of Defense is now releasing the snowflakes on a rolling monthly basis. There must be some kind of an interim report someone can give me. ", The meeting also led Mr Rumsfeld to write that he needed a team to help him "go out and push people back, rather than simply defending" Iraq policy and strategy. May 11, 2001 Washington D.C., January 24, 2018 - On the day before September 11, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld believed the gravest threat to American national security was Pentagon bureaucracy, according to “snowflakes” he wrote that were released by the Defense Department after a five-year Freedom of Information Act fight and lawsuit by the National Security Archive. He concluded the memo by asking, “Is this all really necessary?” In a separate September 10 item, he pondered abolishing the Armed Forces Staff College. Of course, I am also a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. April 10, 2001 Under siege in April 2006, when a series of retired generals denounced him and called for his resignation, Mr Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with military analysts. Nov. 28, 2001, 1:38 p.m. Often, Rumsfeld wrestles with his own identity, posing unanswerable questions to Torie Clarke, a top aide, and Newt Gingrich, apparently an imaginary muse. A Disputed Election Delivered 3 governors to Georgia – at the Same Time, ASU Professor Explains 'Interracial Racism' And The History Between Asian And Black Americans, Was Martin Luther King Jr. a Republican or a Democrat? Be honest: When you heard Donald Rumsfeld had released his “snowflakes,” your first thoughts were that the former defense secretary must have taken hostages at a Brooklyn Starbucks. SecDef Said Biggest Threat on 9/10/2001: Pentagon Bureaucracy, Archive FOIA Lawsuit Wins Monthly Releases Thanks to Pro Bono Representation by Skadden Arps, READ the First Full Tranche of Snowflakes, January 1, 2001 How did you respond to this one?’ That was pretty unpleasant. In Pentagon briefings, he regaled the nation with pithy comments about shaved gorillas and chickens in barnyards, and in 2002, he rendered to the world his oratorical masterpiece about “known knowns,” the things that we know we know. Rumsfeld’s Final Snowflake by Mike Whitney . Here’s when it came into my office. It … Mr Rumsfeld, whose sometimes abrasive approach often alienated other cabinet members and White House staff, produced 20 to 60 snowflakes a … Rumsfeld complains about teleconferencing. People, this is poetry gold! Observers have pointed out, for example, that Rumsfeld was railing against the threat of Defense Department bureaucracy in the days before the 9/11 attacks and inquiring about the languages spoken in Afghanistan nearly two months after the United States invaded the country.). "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. I don’t have a single second to do anything. We want to hear what you think about this article. Nov. 16, 2001, 9:13 a.m. You can unsubscribe at any time and you can contact us here. Occasionally, the poet unleashes a primal cry for help, directed caustically at his captors. Rumsfeld and his aides famously referred to these mini-memos as “snowflakes,” but they seem more like itty-bitty earthquakes designed to send recipients scrambling for cover under their desks. “But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” A star was born. Every day I have to ask for my calendar. Rumsfeld is having a difficult time finding the Policy Planning Staff within the Department of Defense. There is no reason for that. October 15, 2001 Sadly, the documents do not include Rumsfeld’s response to Pieces of Intelligence after the book came out in 2003. Please tell people to stop using only their titles and start using their names in addition to the titles on correspondence. I can’t just pass them out. “The beginning of any discussion of what we should do has to be what should we be trying to achieve.”, “The most dramatic example of this was right after 9/11 when a large part of the government operated on the assumption that the goal of the United States after 9/11 was the same goal that we had after every terrorist attack of recent decades, which is: Find out who did it and hit them,” Feith noted. Mr Rumsfeld, whose sometimes abrasive approach often alienated other cabinet members and White House staff, produced 20 to 60 snowflakes a day and regularly poured out his thoughts in writing as the basis for developing policy, aides said. Look closely, and you can see the roots of his future existentialism. Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflake Poetry Is Exactly What America Needs Right Now - By Hart Seely (politico.com) / Jan 27 2018 Be honest: When you heard Donald Rumsfeld had released his “snowflakes,” your first thoughts were that the former defense secretary must have taken hostages at a Brooklyn Starbucks. But what about these newfound memos, an avalanche of words that until now have languished for 17 years in bureaucratic limbo? It could even pop up in the same one under different circumstances.”, “Problems that relate to human nature never actually get solved,” Feith argued. Rumsfeld instructs that the DOD needs “to avoid having briefers react to every single event.”. June 9, 2001, (no time stamp). And so, in the course of the day, as he would have different meetings … things would pop into his head and he would say, ‘I haven’t addressed this in a while. Rumsfeld instructs Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to “get a team together” to “make our next case on anything we do after Afghanistan.”, National Security Archive Please don’t make me ask for it. Judge Tanya S. Chutkan agreed, calling the DOD six-year delay "unconscionably long. Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflake Poetry Is Exactly What America Needs Right Now. IT IS caught. In it, Rumsfeld instructs, “Someone ought to be thinking through what kind of an event we are going to have for the people who died here.” In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Pentagon budget expanded from 325 billion in FY 2001 to 447 billion in FY 2006 and military personnel estimates rose from 76,888 to 111,286 during the same period, ending Rumsfeld’s war on bureaucracy. And then as soon as he got back to his office he would dictate snowflakes based on those notes.”. Visit with David Chu, And tell me what you two THINK WE OUGHT TO DO! Rumsfeld is less than thrilled to receive Newt Gingrich’s advice on Afghanistan. Rumsfeld pushes for the military to adopt drones. We also need to solve the Pakistan problem. The full corpus of snowflakes is a critical historical resource. “It was almost like a crisis for me,” Feith said. … He was not afraid of being wrong. Some Rumsfeld snowflakes, which were dictated into a hand-held tape recorder and then typed by an assistant, are downright sour. Rumsfeld passes along Michael Hayden’s interview on 60 Minutes in which Hayden discusses the danger of Osama bin Laden. Finally, tweet other notable releases using the hashtag #rummysnowflakes. Where are we on North Korea?’”, “What he wanted first and foremost is: Do we have an understanding of what are the three or four or at most five things that are the main U.S. national interests with respect to that subject?” Feith continued. Rumsfeld excoriates staff for sending him papers less than 24 to 36 hours before his meetings. September 10, 2001 Here is the Congressional report on foreign military training. Rumsfeld recommends the abolishment of the Armed Forces Staff College, stating that its 16 week program “is worth about 4 weeks” and that it covers the same subjects as the Army, Navy, and Air Force Staff Colleges. Korea obviously still isn’t going well, and the Bush administration’s war in Iraq produced the very mess that Rumsfeld feared Syria and Libya would bring about in 2003. It’s the Pentagon Bureaucracy.”. I don’t want them to use initials that I don’t understand. If they mess up Iraq, it will delay bringing our troops home. In newfound verse from 2001, the former defense secretary … I say to myself, “Gee, “I haven’t seen my calendar.” I need to get it by mid-day, so I can affect it for the period ahead. Also it smacks of isolationism.”. I know he was aware of it: I sent him an autographed copy. Though quick for Rumsfeld to dictate or type, these memos requesting actions, position papers, or research were a significant burden on Pentagon employees, growing, in Rumsfeld’s own words, “from mere flurries to a veritable blizzard.”, The September 10 memo is one page out of an estimated 59,000 pages that the Pentagon has begun to provide in segments to the Archive after the Department of Defense attorney confessed, "As far as the delay in the initial response to the request, all I can do is fall on our sword; that was too long." That was worse than the dentist. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. September 24, 2001 Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Rumsfeld requests that he be able to sit down during TV interviews “so I can lean forward.”. September 10, 2001 Reserved. Are there other things? I asked Feith whether he ever solved the Pakistan problem. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith visits Pakistan in 2005. Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflake Poetry Is Exactly What America Needs Right Now. ", The only man to hold the top Pentagon job twice — as both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary — Mr Rumsfeld suggested that the public should have known that there would be no "terminal event" in the fight against terrorism like the signing ceremony on the USS Missouri when Japan surrendered to end World War II. September 12, 2001 "It is going to be a long war," he wrote. At 10:15 AM on September 10, Rumsfeld authored a snowflake – the term used to describe his usually one-page, often one-sentence, memos that he sent to his underlings to ask a question or issue an instruction – bemoaning the quantity of DOD agencies, surgeons general, inspectors general, judge advocates general, Congressional Relations functions, and Public Affairs functions.
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