Makes you wonder what else is going on in the five sided puzzle palace.

Washington Post
September 19, 2003
White-Rumsfeld Dispute, Round 2
Ex-Army Secretary Fires Back on Iraq
By Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writer
For several months after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fired him as secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White kept a low profile.
His departure from the Army's top civilian job followed a series of clashes with Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz over the nature and pace of Army modernization and planning for postwar Iraq. Summoned to Rumsfeld's office late one Friday in April and abruptly told his services were no longer desired, White, a retired Army general and former Enron Corp. executive, left without any public comment on his removal or his two years overseeing the military's largest branch.
But in recent weeks White has started speaking out and, not surprisingly, he has some critical things to say about his old boss -- about the tight control Rumsfeld exerted over the timing of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq before the war, about the adequacy of Rumsfeld's planning for postwar reconstruction and about Rumsfeld's negative views of the Army's willingness to transform itself.
The main vehicle for this reemergence has been publication of a book written by White and three political and economic specialists from CountryWatch Inc., a Houston firm headed by a longtime friend of White's that publishes forecasts for 192 countries. Entitled "Reconstructing Eden," the 380-page book is more a loose compilation of statistics and general prescriptions than a comprehensive, tightly argued work. But it has afforded White an opportunity to register some concerns.
"It is quite clear in the immediate aftermath of hostilities that the plan for winning the peace is totally inadequate," the preface says about the Iraqi situation. "Clearly the view that the war to 'liberate' Iraq would instantly produce a pro-United States citizenry ready for economic and political rebirth ignored the harsh realities on the ground."
To some extent, White is picking up where he left off with Rumsfeld. In a very public dispute several weeks before the war, White sided with Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki, warning that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq after hostilities ended. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz rejected that estimate as grossly exaggerated, insisting stability could be quickly established and U.S. forces rapidly reduced.
Wolfowitz chided White in private afterward. Wolfowitz "was not happy that we had taken a position that was opposed to what his thinking on the subject was," White recalled in an interview. "He couldn't imagine a situation where the size of the force necessary to secure the peace would be larger than the force necessary to fight the war. But in hindsight, which is always 20/20, that ended up to be precisely the case."
Another senior defense official with direct knowledge of the conversation between the two men said the Pentagon's estimated postwar requirement had come from the top U.S. commander in the region, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, and Wolfowitz told White it was not appropriate for a military service chief to be publicly contradicting the commander.
White agreed and said he would talk to Shinseki, this official said. As for events since, the official noted, the numbers of U.S. and total coalition troops have declined as the level of reconstituted Iraqi forces has risen.
During the interview, White was seated in the spacious living room of his Georgetown apartment in the Washington Harbour complex overlooking the Potomac. The apartment, listed last year for $5 million, was recently sold, although White declined to disclose the price or the buyer, saying both are covered by a confidentiality clause. He plans to move back to Houston soon and expects to reenter the energy business.
Direct and articulate, with thinning gray-streaked hair and penetrating blue eyes, White, 59, came to the Army job with a mix of military and corporate experience. A West Point graduate and Vietnam War veteran, he spent 23 years in the Army, rising to brigadier general. His final year was spent as executive assistant to Gen. Colin L. Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In July 1990, he moved to Texas to become vice chairman of Enron Energy Services, a division of Enron Corp.
His appointment as Army secretary in 2001 reflected a broad push by Rumsfeld to place corporate executives at the top of the military services. James G. Roche, a Northrop Grumman vice president, was tapped to head the Air Force, and Gordon R. England, a General Dynamics executive vice president, took charge of the Navy. Together, the three were to form a kind of board of directors with Rumsfeld as chairman, but the analogy never took hold, White said.
"Over time, each of us became focused on our own services," he said. "The building ended up being run by Rumsfeld and his OSD [Office of Secretary of Defense] staff, which is the way it's been run for years."
Part of that reflected Rumsfeld's hands-on style, White added. Part also reflected the unanticipated demands of the war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In his first year, White was heavily distracted by controversy over his former role as an Enron executive. Despite being grilled by Congress and questioned by Justice Department investigators, White said no legal action was taken against him -- and he expects none. He described Rumsfeld as especially supportive throughout the ordeal.
"He's someone who's been around town for a long time and had seen a lot of this come and go, and so his counsel was very helpful," White said.
Where White ran into serious trouble with Rumsfeld was over the Pentagon leader's decision to cancel the Crusader, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer that the Army had been developing for years. White strongly favored the $11 billion program and resented Rumsfeld moving to kill it in the spring of 2002. Rumsfeld saw the weapon as a carryover from the Cold War and opted to pursue newer technologies that promised lighter, more mobile, precision-guided systems.
The action became emblematic of Rumsfeld's view that the Army was not transforming itself fast enough into a more agile force.
"I think he was of the view that somehow as an Army, that either Shinseki and I personally, or that we as an Army culturally, didn't get it -- didn't get this business of transformation or modernization," White said. "And we were always billed or characterized as being stodgy and reluctant to change."
White considered the characterization wrong. In recent years, he said, the Army has invested heavily in such transformational programs as the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle and the Future Combat System. While acknowledging that the Army has been slow to restructure its corps and divisions into smaller, more easily deployable units, White said the demands of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made such change difficult in the near-term.
"I suppose it's a hit on me that I never was able to convince Rumsfeld that we were on the right track in the Army, that we knew exactly what we were doing, that we had committed ourselves to transform the force and we were getting on with it as rapidly as possible," White said. "I don't ever think that Shinseki and I got over that hurdle."
For all the strains with Rumsfeld, White expressed admiration.
"Professionally, we had our differences," he said. "Personally, I have tremendous respect for him. He's a man of enormous talents and energies and has really been a very strong secretary of defense."
White also praised the conduct of combat operations in Iraq. But in addition to being critical of postwar planning, he faulted Rumsfeld for the way troops were deployed in the run-up to the fight. Instead of sticking with the military's detailed schedule -- the time-phased force deployment list -- Rumsfeld dispensed with it and insisted on micromanaging the process, White said.
"The whole deployment process was incrementalized into at times very small packages, all of which had to be decided separately, down to occasionally small units -- some about 50 people," White said. "That process caused things to get out of sync, and decisions would be delayed, and consequently, there were some reserve units that didn't get proper lead time to mobilize. It was not done in a well-oiled fashion and it needs to be, because it caused us a lot of human suffering.
"The secretary wanted to run it, he wanted control," White added. "I think his fundamental view was that we as services are not disciplined enough in our manpower business -- we call up too many people, we ask for too much, and this sort of thing."
Replied Rumsfeld spokesman Larry DiRita: "There's no question that the flow of forces was different for this conflict than past ones. But the secretary worked closely with the combatant commander, General Tommy Franks, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Richard Myers, in deciding the flow this time. The old system was designed for a different era."