Bush & Company

Donald Rumsfeld's recently published memoir, KNOWN AND U NKNOWN, Penguin Group (Sentinel) is a handsome volume with a striking jacket featuring Mr. Rumsfeld's picture, front
and back; a weighty, exhaustive and impressive tome of over 800 pages with the look of a highly important historical record, documented by a man of substance, to be regarded as accurate and illuminating.

Customary is the generous compilation of photographs---some standard-nostalgic and humanizing---of family and associates, as well as humorous and touching anecdotes, designed to persuade, and to mollify the harsh judgments held by many of a ruthless, often acerbic and contemptuous Rumsfeld, whose strong personality is somewhat restrained, while un- compromising, in his smoothly and carefully crafted memoir.

Save a few mitigating concessions, his regrets are few, his rationalizations more abundant.

Errors of wisdom by the likes of the former secretary can be viewed either as honest (and honorable) mistakes or as acts of calculated and contentious willfulness, the deeds of a forceful goal setter who will not allow facts to deter his course.

The author does not apologize for his role in the Iraq war that took over 4,500 American lives and countless others, mostly Iraqi, and in fact, claims the deposition of Saddam Hussein made it worthwhile. His audacious admission that the final decision to invade Iraq was based, no longer on the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction( WMD) but on Saddam's intention of acquiring, developing or making them, will strike some as brazen and boldfaced and the decision as shameless, despite his insistence that Saddam remained "intent on acquiring them," holding WMD programs "on the shelf" that could later be implemented; that the Middle East would be "far more perilous" were Hussein still in power. He makes no allusion to his Office of Special Plans, where cherry picking any intelligence, however faulty, was used to make a case for war

One glaring omission is any mention of the Pat Tillman "friendly fire" scandal.

References to detractors, such as former US Military Prison System commander in Iraq Brigadier General Janis Karpinski---demoted to colonel, perhaps partially for outspokenness against Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and certein high military brass---now retired, also are omitted from the work.

Mr. Rumsfeld staunchly continues his denials, emphasizing that the abuses at Abu Ghraib". . .were the senseless crimes of a small group of prison guards who ran amok in the absence of adequate supervision." (p. 545)

He writes, "After twelve nonpartisan independent reviews and investigations of Defense Department detainee policies, not one found evidence that abuse had been encouraged or condoned by senior officials in the Defense Department---military or civilian." (p.552) Nevertheless, he did accept responsibility (though not the blame).

Angrily accused of rewriting history by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer states that "Government documents show that the methods used at Abu Ghraib were the same ones Mr. Rumsfeld approved and that the abuse of prisoners in Defense Department custody was systemic."

The author does, however touch on the explosive topic of specific interrogation techniques, notably waterboarding. "I did not believe it would be appropriate for anyone in Defense Department custody to be waterboarded or stripped and subjected to cold temperatures, and I
rejected those techniques." (p.578) It does appear that Mr. Rumsfeld believes that certain "coercive interrogation techniques," though strongly opined by many "do not and will not work," are effective, countering that "There are inconvenient facts to the contrary. . ."(p.586)

As is usual in such books, to vindicate one's controversial positions for posterity, some blame is assigned: Armitage, Bremer, surprisingly Bush, Franks, Rice, Tenet and then-secretary of state, Powell (and his contention that he was misled by flawed intel in publicly supporting the Iraq invasion) as well as the media are faulted, while former vice president, Dick Cheney, is spared. George H. W. Bush also comes under fire.

The former secretary stresses that the administration did not lie. "The far less dramatic truth is that we were wrong."