"It started Tuesday with ordering a tuna fish sandwich and ended more than an hour later with the guest/reporter telling the Secretary of Defense, “I'm going to keep kicking your butt.” And in-between? Let Joe Galloway tell you.
For at least two years, Knight Ridder military editor and columnist Joe Galloway has been one of the most persistent and harshest critics of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war, and other military issues, from an informed position. Galloway is one of the celebrated war correspondents of our time, winner of a Bronze Star for valor during the Vietnam conflict, and co-author of the book “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young.”
About six weeks ago, perhaps recognizing Galloway's credibility and the growing chorus of criticism from others, Rumsfeld's office invited the correspondent to what it called “a private lunch” at the Pentagon. No one told Galloway why, but he didn't have to guess. “I knew they weren't planning to give me some kind of ribbon,” Galloway told me today.
Asked if he spiffed up for the meeting, Galloway acknowledged that he did “put on a tie,” then took the metro to the Pentagon from his apartment on the Potomac in nearby Arlington, Va.
Well, as it turned out, the lunch wasn't quite private, as the two men were joined by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two other brass, and a Pentagon spokesman. “Five to one, they had me surrounded,” Galloway said. “I've been doing this for 47 years and it was the first time I had a command performance with an audience like that.”
How did it go? “I had a fun time,” Galloway revealed. “I don't know about the rest of them.”
They met in Rumsfeld's “huge” office around a conference table. Galloway had ordered a tuna sandwich on the way in and found that Rummy was also eating tuna, but salad style. When Rumsfeld noticed that Joe had eaten the tuna but left the bread he ribbed him about that -- imagine, waste at the Pentagon!
Rumsfeld, Galloway related (in our interview and in a column he wrote about the episode today), was cordial and smiling throughout, but quickly demanded to know why he himself wasn't hearing all the negative stuff about the lack of progress in Iraq and the military grumblings that the writer was picking up on. Galloway reminded him that someone in Rumsfeld's position was not likely to get much bad news passed up the chain of command.
Then Rummy questioned his sources, suggesting they were perhaps all retired generals far from the scene. Galloway replied that about half were active duty and many of them “not only active duty but also work in the Pentagon.” Some might even be on Rumsfeld's staff.
As the discussion went on, Galloway continued to raise issues about the state of our military, as the generals argued that “the Army was not broken and things were not going so badly in Iraq.” Rumsfeld occasionally took notes on a yellow pad. He “seemed to be enjoying it when I got into it with one of the other guys,” Galloway told me. “He would lean back in his chair with a grin and watch us go at it. I had the impression he was listening very carefully to everything and here and there he heard something that might need follow-up. I suspect he will shower a few snowflakes [memos] down on them, maybe starting today. “
The Knight Ridder columnist asked whether the U.S. could figure out a better way of fighting the war than sending our troops down the same road only to be blown up by IEDs. Rumsfeld claimed he agreed and had ordered that our emphasis shift even more to training Iraqis.
Galloway also pressed him on one of his pet issues -- military “bill collectors” going after ex-soldiers who maybe had lost a limb or two in Iraq. Rumsfeld blamed it on the Pentagon computer system but said steps were being taken to address that.
When Rumsfeld took issue with Joe's most recent column, in which he charged that the Pentagon, a la Vietnam, was pushing “body counts,” Galloway stood his ground, saying, “If you don't want to do body counts then stop doing them.”
After more than an hour, the Pentagon spokesman told his boss, “sir, we are way out of time,” but Galloway thought the meeting could have gone on for another hour or more. As he headed for the door, Rumsfeld guided him to an anteroom to show him a framed letter he found in his late father's belongings. It was written by Defense Secretary James Forrestal to the elder Rumsfeld, thanking him for his service in the Navy during the Pacific War. Rumsfeld, of course, has never served in combat himself.
On the way out, the defense secretary said, in parting: "I want you to know that I love soldiers and I care about soldiers. All of us here do." Well, one would hope so.
In parting, Galloway told me, he informed Rumsfeld, “I want you to know that I'm going to keep kicking your butt, to keep you focused.”
Rumsfeld replied, “That's okay, I can take it.”
Two days later now, I asked Joe about Rumsfeld's central belief -- that he was getting the true story on Iraq and the state of the military and Galloway was not.
“Besides talking to people, I get a tremendous amount of e-mail from people in the military and in the Pentagon who read my column and react to it,” he replied. “They are concerned. What I'm hearing is that 99% of these readers are 100% in favor of what I am writing, and ask me to keep at it. Unfortunately, if I am right, the military is in a lot of trouble.”
Anything else you left out of today's column, I wondered? “I got a peek at the bathroom in his office,” Galloway said, deadpan, “and he has a bank of cartoons posted there.” -from Editor&Publisher. See, there still are some Ed Murrow-types around!
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