“It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog,” Rumsfeld said in the memo.

“DoD [Department of Defense] has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies, and air forces,” Rumsfeld continued. “It is not possible to change the DoD enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere—one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.”

The Secretary of Defense asked a range of questions of the four people he addressed the memo to: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Marine Gen. Peter Pace, and Defense Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith.

“We are having mixed results with Al Qaeda, although we have put considerable pressure on them—nonetheless, a great many remain at large,” Rumsfeld said. While making progress in capturing or killing the top 55 officials in Saddam Hussein’s regime, Washington has been slow in tracking down the Taliban leaders deposed in Afghanistan, he stated.

“Does the DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip, and focus to deal with the global war on terror?” Rumsfeld asked. “Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves.”  
 
‘Does CIA need a new finding?’
“Does CIA need a new finding?” Rumsfeld asked. A “finding” is an order signed by the President, which is kept secret, authorizing the CIA or Special Operations forces to go into a country and kill someone or carry out other covert operations. U.S. president George Bush issued such findings authorizing the CIA to kill or capture Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. assault and occupation of the country and in a similar operation in Yemen in November 2002.

According to several panelists on the TV talk show The McLaughlin Group, a “new finding” is likely to be issued for operations in Pakistan, where the government is not fully cooperating with Washington in handing over Al Qaeda leaders who are reportedly functioning there. Another possible target is Syria.

At the Pentagon press conference Rumsfeld stated he stood by every word in his memorandum. “I re-read the memo in the paper, and I thought, ‘Not bad,’” he said, with a grin. “From the beginning we’ve said that this global war on terror is a tough one. It’s going to take a long time. It’s going to take cooperation of a lot of countries.”

There was not even a hint of criticism of Rumsfeld’s memo—or the way he presented it to the public—from Bush or anyone else in the White House.

Questioned about his depiction of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as a “long, hard slog,” Rumsfeld cited a dictionary definition of the world “slog” as “to hit or strike hard, to drive with blows, to assail violently.”

“And that’s precisely what the U.S. has been doing and intends to continue to do,” he said. “It’s not only the Oxford Dictionary’s preferred definition. It’s mine.”  
 
 
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