By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 3, 2006; A01
Two days before he resigned from the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to the White House a classified memo recommending "a major adjustment" in Iraq strategy and acknowledging slow progress there.
"Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough," Rumsfeld wrote in the Nov. 6 memo.
Rumsfeld has made similar comments in public about insufficient progress in Iraq, both before and immediately after his resignation on Nov. 8.
But the defense secretary's unusually expansive memo also laid out a series of 21 possible courses of action regarding Iraq strategy, including many that would transform the U.S. occupation.
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the revelation of the memo would undercut any attempt by President Bush to defend anything resembling a "stay the course" policy in Iraq.
"When you have the outgoing secretary of defense, the main architect of Bush's policy, saying it's failing, that puts a lot more pressure on Bush," he said.
The memo makes clear that Rumsfeld understood acutely the political implications of changing strategy.
"Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis," he wrote in one of the bulleted options. "This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not 'lose.' "
He next advised: "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) -- go minimalist."
Similarly, Rumsfeld advocated announcing "a set of benchmarks" for the Iraqi government -- "to get them moving," he added parenthetically, as well as to "reassure" the U.S. public that progress can be made.
The existence of the memo was first reported last night by the New York Times, which posted it on its Web site. The Pentagon confirmed the memo's authenticity.
Asked about the memo, White House spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said: "The president has said he's been dissatisfied with the progress in Iraq, so the right thing to do is reevaluate our tactics. There are a number of reviews underway, and the president is open to listening to a wide array of options."
Rumsfeld's ideas did not depart radically from the alternative strategies emerging so far from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group or from other military and governmental Iraq policy reviews initiated in recent weeks.
For example, Rumsfeld called for significantly increasing the number of U.S. military trainers embedded with Iraqi forces, and, in a twist, for "a reverse embeds program" that would place Iraqi soldiers with American squads, partly to boost the Arabic-language skills of U.S. troops.
Several options Rumsfeld raised involve withdrawing or pulling back the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq as a way to pressure the Iraqi government to take greater responsibility for its own security. This idea, favored by many Democrats in Congress, has not been publicly embraced by Rumsfeld to such a degree. Still, Rumsfeld wrote that he opposed setting a firm withdrawal date.
"Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start 'taking our hand off the bicycle seat'), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up, and take responsibility for their country," Rumsfeld wrote.
Rumsfeld suggested using the security provided by U.S. troops in a carrot-and-stick approach, providing security only for provinces and cities that fully cooperate with U.S. forces. Similarly, reconstruction aid should go only to "those parts of Iraq that are behaving," he wrote, adding: "No more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence."
Options the defense secretary characterized as "less attractive" involved U.S. troop increases, such as a surge in U.S. forces into Baghdad or substantially increasing the number of American combat brigades in Iraq. The only place he recommended a U.S. troop increase was along Iraq's borders with Syria and Iran.
Rumsfeld's well-known frustration with other branches of the U.S. government comes through repeatedly in the memo and is far blunter than the secretary has been in public. He called for reaching out to U.S. military retirees and reservists to "aggressively beef up" Iraqi ministries, adding, "i.e. give up on trying to get other USG Departments to do it."
Similarly, he called for a "massive program for unemployed youth" but said it would have to be run by U.S. forces, "since no other organization could do it."
Retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, now a professor of international relations at Boston University, said his impression of the memo is that it is a "laundry list" of current ideas entirely lacking in analysis.
"The memo is a tacit admission of desperation and of impending failure," said Bacevich, who has been critical of the conduct of the war.
People in Washington familiar with the workings of the Pentagon and the media were suspicious of the motives behind the leak of the memo.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, an Iraq veteran who has been critical of Rumsfeld, said he was bothered by both the timing and the substance of the memo.
"For Mr. Rumsfeld to write this leaked memo, saying things aren't going well, is disingenuous and self-serving," said Eaton.
But he added that he did not think it would affect the morale of troops or officers serving in Iraq, saying he thought they would dismiss it as irrelevant "high-level politics."
Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Michael Abramowitz contributed to this report.