Iraq War Seen as Rumsfeld's Pentagon Legacy

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

That congressional visit to Cuba isn't the only trip U.S. lawmakers are making this week to the countries that the Bush administration refuses to talk with. Senator John Kerry is on a nine-day tour of the Middle East. He plans to stop in Syria. John Kerry and fellow Democrat Senator Bill Nelson, who visited the country earlier this week, hope to enlist Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's help in the war in Iraq.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Now here in Washington, Donald Rumsfeld's time as secretary of defense comes to an end today. He has the second-longest tenure for a defense chief in history but it's not clear how history will judge him, although that judgment will have a lot to do with Iraq.

NPR's Guy Raz has our report.

GUY RAZ: Two days after a Marine recovery vehicle pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad in April 2003, Donald Rumsfeld picked up the morning paper.

Mr. DONALD RUMSFELD (Secretary of Defense): And I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was henny-penny, the sky is falling. I've never seen anything like it. And here is a country that's being liberated.

RAZ: What annoyed him that morning were news accounts of anarchy in Iraq's capital.

Mr. RUMSFELD: The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over. And it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase. And you have seen it 20 times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases.

RAZ: Now, on that day, April 11th, 2003, someone in the Pentagon briefing room asked him why the looting wasn't being prevented. And Rumsfeld, without a blink, said…

Mr. RUMSFELD: Stuff happens. And it's untidy. And freedom is untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here.

RAZ: It's not what happened there. Things of course got worse. Rumsfeld himself admits as much. And in his final months as secretary, members of Congress were calling for his head. Retired generals wanted him sacked. And a Gallup poll showed less than a third of the American public approved of his job performance, yet Rumsfeld dismissed it all with characteristic bravado.

Unidentified Man: Do you bear any responsibility for what has gone wrong in Iraq? Or is it all General Casey's fault?

Mr. RUMSFELD: Oh, this is a question the kids asked every time there's a press conference. You know, give me all your sevens, tell us what you've done wrong. Why do we have to keep going through this? Of course I bear responsibility. My Lord, I'm secretary of defense. Write it down. Quote it. You can bank it.

RAZ: A few months after Major General John Batiste retired from active duty, he went to Capitol Hill to spill the beans about his former boss.

General JOHN BATISTE (U.S. Army, Retired): Secretary Rumsfeld forbade the military planners from developing plans for securing a postwar Iraq. At one point, he threatened to fire the next person who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

RAZ: Now Batiste isn't some disgruntled employee. He's the guy who commanded the Army's First Armored Division in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. It was a searing indictment for sure, yet the legacy Rumsfeld leaves behind is not so simple. For many who worked for him, Rumsfeld…

Mr. DOV ZAKHEIM (Former Pentagon Comptroller): Fundamentally changed the way the Pentagon operates.

RAZ: This is Dov Zakheim. He's served as the Pentagon comptroller under Rumsfeld. He credits his former boss with things like…

Mr. ZAKHEIM: Changing the command structure. He brought in new weapons systems. He killed Cold War weapons systems. He changed business management. He changed the way the budget system works.

RAZ: It was part of a process Rumsfeld called transformation.

General BOB SCALES (U.S. Army, Retired): And his passion in office wasn't to fight the war in Afghanistan and Iraq but to reshape the military in this techno-centric mode, if you will.

RAZ: This is military historian and retired Major General Bob Scales.

Mr. SCALES: If there is a Greek tragedy storyline in all this, it's that the military that he saw in the future, this highly capable, light, small military that was capable of delivering great precision from great distances, suddenly was trumped by an enemy who approached warfare in an entirely different passion.

RAZ: The military Rumsfeld leaves behind faces incredible strain and soon massive budget shortfalls. All of this is in the public records. What's not is that for the three years, every few days, far from the white-hot camera lights, Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce have quietly made their way to Walter Reed Medical Center. They go there to cheer up the injured troops back from the front.

Guy Raz, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.