Rumsfeld talks gloom on war

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon and White House yesterday defended a memorandum from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to top defence officials questioning progress in the war on terrorism.

It also warned that the United States faced "a long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In words sharply at odds with his more upbeat public comments, Rumsfeld wrote it was not possible to transform the Defence Department quickly enough to effectively fight the anti-terrorism war.

Rumsfeld said the United States had no yardstick for measuring progress in the anti-terrorism war started after the September 2001 attacks.

The Pentagon and the White House said the October 16 memo, made public yesterday, properly raised issues for Pentagon leaders to consider.

Rumsfeld said the memo was an effort to raise questions.

"Sometimes one needs to say to a big institution: Hey, wait a minute. Let's lift our eyes up and look out across the horizon and say, 'Are there questions that we ought to be asking ourselves? Are there things that we ought to think about ways to do differently'?" he said.

He said the memo stemmed from reports he had received from combat commanders around the world, and was sent to "three or four of my closest associates".

In it, he said it was "pretty clear the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog".

He challenged Pentagon leaders to consider and discuss troubling issues, including whether or not the United States was capturing or killing terrorists at a faster rate than they were being created by extremists.

"The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists," he wrote.

"The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the memo was "exactly what a strong and capable secretary of defence, like Secretary Rumsfeld, should be doing". "We appreciate the job the Secretary of Defence is doing, working with our military leaders to make sure we are adapting to defeat the terrorists."

McClellan said progress was being made in the war on terrorism.

Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the memo marked "the first bit of introspection that I've even whiffed" from the Defence Department's top civilian officials.

"I'm not suggesting there's a change in direction but there's a little self-doubt setting in," Biden said.

- REUTERS