LEANING FORWARD:

Rumsfeld's War: Smart and tough, Don Rumsfeld wants to take the fight to Iraq. The hawk who's battling for Bush's soul. (Evan Thomas, 9/16/02, NEWSWEEK)

"Leaning forward" is one of Donald Rumsfeld's favorite expressions. An old cold-war term, familiar to soldiers and spies, it means the willingness to be aggressive, to take risks. "I want every one of you to know how forward-leaning we are," the secretary of Defense told a room full of Marine generals and Navy admirals at the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, last month.

RUMSFELD RECALLED HIS OWN dissatisfaction with his first Pentagon briefing on the rules of engagement, the military's rules on when a soldier can and cannot shoot, at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan last fall. The briefing, delivered by a lawyer from the Judge Advocate General's Corps, was convoluted and full of legalistic hedges and maybes. "That's not the way it works," Rumsfeld told his audience of top brass. "This is a military operation. The object is to be forward-leaning." Explained one Rumsfeld aide: "He wants to go out and kill bad guys."

It will be interesting, if this thing goes on for awhile and/or if it gets difficult, to see if a guy who was specifically brought in to step on toes and strip-mine the place (for budgetary reasons), can run it effectively during wartime, which is when they usually get pampered and have money slathered on them. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2002 7:54 AM