New Book: Rumsfeld and Cheney loved war games; Rumsfeld always pushed for nuclear option

[sabra]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/26/rumsfeld/

When Rummy tried to nuke Russia

In an excerpt from his new biography of the former secretary of defense, Andrew Cockburn explains how the true Donald Rumsfeld emerged during secret war games.


<snip>

Rumsfeld was offered no position in the administration of George H.W. Bush.

A few months after the inauguration, Donald Rumsfeld was invited to play the role of president of the United States in an exercise devised by a Washington think tank. In this scenario, "President" Rumsfeld was intent on securing congressional approval to go to war. "I don't care what you tell them," he barked at White House chief of staff Ed Markey, "just get over to Capitol Hill and make them do it, and make sure there are no constraints."

...

Rumsfeld loved these games. There were others who were frequent players in the exercises, notably Dick Cheney. "Cheney and the others often had other priorities," recalls the former Pentagon official. "Rumsfeld always came." He wasn't just trying to organize a devastated country. He was fighting World War III, or at least simulating what nuclear theory suggested such a conflict would be like.

Herein lies an aspect of Rumsfeld's career -- and character -- that remained deeply buried even after word of his participation in the COG exercises leaked out. Faced with the most awesome choices a simulated environment could present, placed in a situation that was designed and advertised as a rehearsal for what might one day be terrifyingly real, Rumsfeld had one primary response. He always tried to unleash the maximum amount of nuclear firepower possible.

...

There were other changes too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the "shadow government" had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players' roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks.

"It was one way for these people to stay in touch. They'd meet, do the exercise but also sit around and castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way," a former Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the phenomenon told me. "You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, (they had) no idea what was going on."

[Bobbie Jo]

1. "Cheney often had other priorities."

Cheney gets deferments for fake wars too? :eyes:

[sabra]

2. LOL

:rofl: