NYTimes and Newsweek and Weekly StandardVS DOD

[Annie]

http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/For-the-record/docs/2006-10-24b.html

New York Times Involved in Mythmaking

October 24, 2006
The New York Times

To the Editor:

The New York Times has once again repeated a popular myth to mislead its readers about Secretary Rumsfeld. We ask for an immediate correction.

Today’s editorial claims: “There have never been enough troops, the result of Mr. Rumsfeld’s negligent decision to use Iraq as a proving ground for his pet military theories, rather than listen to his generals.” Whether or not the Times believes there were enough troops in Iraq, the claim that any troop level in Iraq is the result of Secretary Rumsfeld “not listening to his generals” is demonstrably untrue.

Generals involved in troop level decisions have been abundantly clear on this matter:

* General Tommy Franks, Commander, U.S. Central Command during the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom: “Don Rumsfeld was a hard task master -- but he never tried to control the tactics of our war-fight [Franks, “American Soldier, “ pg 313]

Rather than advancing Secretary Rumsfeld’s alleged “pet theories,” General Franks wrote that he based his troop level recommendations on the following: “Building up a Desert Storm-size force in Kuwait would have taken months of effort - very visible effort - and would have sacrificed the crucial element of operational surprise we now enjoyed. . . . And if operational surprise had been sacrificed, I suspected that the Iraqis would have repositioned their Republican Guard and regular army units, making for an attrition slugfest that would cost thousands of lives.”

On page 333 of his memoirs, General Franks added: “As I concluded my summary of the existing 1003 plan, I noted that we’d trimmed planned force levels from 500,000 troops to around 400,000. But even that was still way too large, I told the Secretary.” General Franks also notes on a number of occasions that rather than “rejecting” military advice, Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly listened to commanders’ advice in designing a plan for Iraq.

* General George Casey, Commander of Multi-National Force - Iraq: “I just want to assure you and the American people that if we need more troops we’ll ask for them. Right now, we don’t.” [CBS News, June 27, 2005]

* General John Abizaid, Commander, U.S. Central Command: “... this notion that troop levels are static is not true, never has been true, and it won’t be true. We’ll ask for what we need when we need them.” [CNN, September 18, 2006]

* Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Pete Pace: “We have done more than honor the request of the commanders. . . . As Joint Chiefs, we have validated that; we have looked at that; we have analyzed it. We decided for ourselves, and I as an individual have agreed with the size force that’s there. So we should take on the responsibility that we own.” [Pace Confirmation Hearings, Transcript, July 10, 2005]

* Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers: “But in the plan going in there, the best military judgment, the judgment we got from academia, from anybody that wanted to make inputs to include the National Security Council was that we had the right number of troops. And so you can always look back and say, should we had something different? I personally don’t believe - we didn’t want to turn Iraq into a police state.” [ABC News, April 16, 2006]

These statements are not new, nor difficult to find in public sources. So the implication is that either the New York Times believes these generals are not being truthful, or that they are too intimidated to tell the truth. If the Times feels this way, way not say so? For our part, we vigorously dispute either assertion about these distinguished military leaders.

The Times claims to correct “all errors of fact.” Please correct this at once or provide us with demonstrable facts that support your assertion.



Sincerely,
Dorrance Smith

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs

and continuing:

Newsweek Declines Pentagon Request to Examine Reporting

October 5, 2006

To the Editor:

Your October 2 issue includes an article on Afghanistan titled “The Rise of Jihadistan.” Attached please find our response. In some instances, the authors assert opinions as facts. In other instances, there is a lack of full context regarding Afghanistan, which has for decades been a violent, war-torn country.

As our response is quite lengthy, we are not submitting a letter to the editor. Instead, we would ask for the opportunity to submit a stand-alone column that not only rebuts some of the more sensational charges, but offers your readers a clearer view of the very real challenges we face in Afghanistan—as well as the many achievements of the past five years.

Thank you for considering this request.



Sincerely,
Dorrance Smith

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs

Attachments: Response to “The Rise of Jihadistan”
“The Rise of Jihadistan”

PDF Version

and one more:

DOD Disputes Weekly Standard Column

Oct. 18, 2006

The Weekly Standard.

To the Editor:

Bill Kristol’s recent article “No More Huffing and Puffing” manipulates Secretary of Defense Donald’s Rumsfeld’s comments at a recent press conference and misleads your readers.

Mr. Kristol’s article quotes at length from a recent press conference by Secretary Rumsfeld. The Secretary opened his remarks by noting the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. The Secretary then moved into a discussion of the threat posed by North Korea.

Mr. Kristol interrupts Secretary Rumsfeld’s remarks by interjecting a question, asking, “But on the sixth anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole, what are we doing about these threats and trends?” He then proceeds to use the rest of the Secretary’s remarks—in which he discusses the need for cooperation of the international community on stopping North Korea—to answer a question the Secretary was never asked.

Mr. Kristol conducts this misleading parsing of Secretary Rumsfeld’s statement so that he can make his point that, in his words, “the lesson Rumsfeld takes from the USS Cole and all that has happened since, is this: We’re dependent on the ‘international community’ and we need to cooperate with others.” (emphasis added.)

Though it may strike some as odd that Mr. Kristol takes issue with the notion of the “need to cooperate with others,” Secretary Rumsfeld said nothing of the sort. His discussion of the international community pertained specifically to the President’s policy on North Korea, not our reaction to the Cole bombing or other terrorist attacks. If anything, in fact, the Secretary’s comments on the international community could be read as exactly the opposite of what Mr. Kristol implies. Indeed, a few days earlier, the Secretary noted at another press event the following: “The international community’s going to have to do a lot better or else face a world that will be quite different, with multiple nuclear nations and . . . the added risk of these very lethal weapons falling into the hands of non-state entities.”

A full transcript of the Secretary’s comments in both press conferences—absent Mr. Kristol’s commentary—is available at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/.



Sincerely,
Dorrance Smith

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs