Rumsfeld's Parting Advice
John Hinderaker

Donald Rumsfeld wrote a memo laying out options for Iraq two days before he was sacked. The full text is here. The memo will be spun in the usual ways; the best thing is to read it for yourself. It isn't very long.

What strikes me most about the memo is how similar Rumsfeld's recommendations are to what we have been doing for some time. He divides alternatives into two categories: "above the line" and "below the line." The below the line alternatives are, Rumsfeld says, "less attractive options."

But the more attractive options sound very familiar. For example:

Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq.

Isn't this exactly what we've been doing for the last year or two?

Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases. Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007.

Again, this is obviously already in progress, as Rumsfeld acknowledges. Some of Rumsfeld's ideas seem sensible, but, again, modest tweaks to our present policies: ...

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The Meaning Of Rumsfeld's Leak
Ed Morrissey

Many bloggers have written about the leaked Rumsfeld memo published by the New York Times on Friday and confirmed by the Pentagon later the same day, but no one has a better political analysis than Andy McCarthy at NRO's The Corner. Calling this the herald of a "train-wreck" two years of lame-duck status for the Bush administration, McCarthy shows exactly how this will be seen by the people who comprise it:

[Read the whole thing.]

Rumsfeld's memo contains a number of initiatives that could be taken, separately or in combination, that would significantly transform our engagement in Iraq. McCarthy has Rumsfeld's intent correct when he says that the former Secretary of Defense obviously wanted to mostly disengage with nation-building tactics in favor of conserving strength for quick strikes. That goes along with Rumsfeld's vision of a light, mobile, and highly responsive military anyway, and would also serve to reduce American vulnerabilities in Iraq while keeping our options for military operations wide open.

That begs the question: is this why Rumsfeld got fired so abruptly?  ...

... [I]t will be interesting after this memo to see how the press and the Democrats approach Rumsfeld. They have made him the Devil incarnate for the last three years for his prosecution of the war. Now that he has endorsed a lighter approach to Iraq, similar to what the media and the opposition have demanded, will they rehabilitate Rumsfeld as a "wise man" on the war? I suspect they will if the Bush administration continues to remain unwilling to adopt whatever recommendations the ISG provides in their report this week. We will see Rumsfeld interviewed on major talk shows in a much more respectful manner, asked to expand on the thoughts in this memo and his evaluation of why we need a "major adjustment".

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A Testament to Cluelessness
Jules Crittenden

Now comes the news that in his final days in the bunker, Donald Rumsfeld had acknowledged even to himself "the situation in Iraq has been evolving" and it was time to think about doing things differently. Here are a bunch of bad ideas and a few belated good ones that Rumsfeld floated Nov. 6 in a memo to the White House, two days prior to being shown the door.

It is a testiment to how out of touch Rumsfeld was, and his failure to recognize basic fundamentals, apparently from the very beginning. ...

Not one of Jules's better pieces, but worth reading none the less. Jules has never pretended to be a Don Rumsfeld fan and if he had this piece would definitely blow his cover.

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Rummy starts a fan club at the NYT
Don Surber

The New York Times for Sunday's edition released a final memo from Donald Rumsfeld before he was fired. My take is that it is a CYA document that will restore Rummy as an oracle for those who want to use the Rummy memo as a blunt instrument against Bush.

But the machinations of the White House don't matter because what happens in Iraq is up to the Iraqis, and has been for some time.

Bush has been eager to hand the land off to some responsible party since Saddam was deposed. Nation building sucks. The problem was, Iraq had no Hamid Karzai. This Chalabi character turned out to a charlatan. We now have Maliki who seems competent but is very tepid. He has a coalition government, but most prime ministers do.

Deal with it.

Except he cannot.  ...

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Michelle has a good link roundup here.

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The Rumsfeld memo
Allahpundit

I don’t have much to say about it but it’s everywhere so I’m obliged to blog. Re: the substance, he tosses everything out there except the one thing that would have the most appreciable impact: more troops, more troops, more troops. Maybe that’s because we don’t have them, maybe it’s because he knows America wouldn’t stand for it at this point even if we did, maybe he still believes we have enough to win (unlikely, given what he says about going “minimalist” with our goals), or maybe he just doesn’t want to lose face by admitting that his critics were right all along.

But never mind that. Was this really written by the Secretary of Defense for White House consumption? Come on:

¶ Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.

¶ Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period.

¶ Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it.

It’s so dumbed down (”taking our hand off the bicycle seat”) and bereft of detail that it’s practically useless. And note the gratuitous reference to Saddam. If Rumsfeld thinks we should appropriate some of his tactics, why not just say what those tactics are instead of tainting them by noting their Baathist pedigree? To me, it reads like something that was prepared with an eye to wider consumption. Could Rummy himself have leaked it? Consider three possibilities.  ....