Should He Stay?

Earlier this year, I asked Rumsfeld whether there was ever a moment when Bush asked him to stay.

"I don't recall that there was," he said. But on the other hand, he added, laughing, "I'm quite confident there was never a moment where he said, 'I want you to leave.' "

Doubts From the Start

Cheney had suggested Rumsfeld to Bush in late December 2000. Rumsfeld was so impressive, Bush told Card at the time. He had had the job in the Ford administration a quarter-century before, and it was as if he were now saying, "I think I've got some things I'd like to finish."

But there was another dynamic that Bush and Card discussed. Rumsfeld and Bush's father, the former president, couldn't stand each other. Bush Senior didn't trust Rumsfeld and thought he was arrogant, self-important, too sure of himself and Machiavellian. Rumsfeld had also made nasty private remarks that the elder Bush was a lightweight.

Card could see that overcoming the former president's skepticism about Rumsfeld added to the president-elect's excitement. It was a chance to prove his father wrong. And Rumsfeld fit Cheney's model of a defense secretary who could battle things out with the generals but also had as much gravitas as the rest of the new national security team.

Bush would nominate Rumsfeld, he told Card. Cheney had been selected for his national security credentials. He was the expert, and this was the sort of decision that required expertise. Still, Bush wondered privately to Card about pitfalls, if there was something he didn't see here. After all, his father had strong feelings.

Is this a trapdoor? he asked.

Disdain for the Process

During the long run-up to the war, Rumsfeld made little attempt to disguise his disdain for what was called "the interagency process" -- coordinating policy with the State Department under Powell and the National Security Council under Rice.

By the start of 2003, Frank Miller, the NSC's senior director for defense, who was coordinating the Iraq issue among the different federal agencies, felt that Rumsfeld had made his job almost impossible.

There was constant tension between the NSC and Rumsfeld's Pentagon, and Rumsfeld went to extra lengths to keep control of information. Often, when Rumsfeld came to the White House with Gen. Tommy R. Franks to brief the president, the NSC and some of the staff on the Iraq invasion plans, he would see that the slides and handouts were distributed just before the meeting and taken back immediately after.

Sometimes there would be a handout for the president with 140 pages, and the lesser beings like Miller would be allowed to see only 40 of them. On one occasion, Rumsfeld came to a meeting without enough briefing packets for all the principals, so Rice wound up looking on with the person next to her.

Sometimes, Rumsfeld would point across the room in the middle of a briefing. "People shouldn't be taking notes," he scolded. "People should not be taking notes in here."