Should He Stay?

When the generals came over to the White House with him, Rumsfeld spoke first, introducing everyone and explaining what they were going to talk about. It was worse for Gen. Richard B. Myers, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Miller and Myers were longtime friends, and Miller could see that Myers was suffering.

At times Rumsfeld would not return Rice's phone calls when she had questions about war planning or troop deployments. She complained to Rumsfeld, who reminded her that the chain of command did not include the national security adviser.

Rice complained to the president.

Bush's response was to try to be playful with Rumsfeld.

"I know you won't talk to Condi," Bush once teased Rumsfeld, "but you've got to talk to her."

At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld built a "kitchen cabinet" of special assistants and consultants within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It grew into a fortress of old friends and retired military officers.

Perhaps the most important of these was Stephen Herbits, a lawyer and longtime Rumsfeld friend going back to 1967. Herbits had been one of Rumsfeld's civilian special assistants during his first Pentagon tour. Rumsfeld made him a consultant with a license to analyze current problems, and he functioned as a management fix-it man, somewhat as Karl Rove did for Bush.

Herbits, who was also a gay rights activist and occasional contributor to Democratic candidates -- and thus highly unusual among Republican defense experts -- was known for his incisive, provocative, slashing dissections of personnel and institutions. Rumsfeld appreciated his style and skill at cutting through the normal fog of Pentagon paperwork and lowest-common-denominator analysis.

On December 5, 2002, in the middle of the most intense invasion planning for Iraq, Herbits walked into Rumsfeld's office.

"You're not going to be happy with what I'm going to tell you," he said, "but you are in the unique position of being the sole person who could lose the president's reelection for him if you don't get something straightened out."

Rumsfeld flushed.

Herbits continued. "Now that I've got your attention, you have got to focus on the post-Iraq planning. It is so screwed up. We will not be able to win the peace."