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In three years, Rumsfeld has never been able to get the security aspect of Iraq right, almost everybody in the universe would agree. So what's his solution? Bring in the heavy guns -- to do more crisis public relations.
Regarding this passage describing a leaked memo from the Pentagon Pr chief:
Who are their surrogates*, how formal is the arrangement, and will the media be careful to identify them as such?In an Oct. 3 memo released this week, J. Dorrance Smith, the assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, outlined four focus areas for his department: distributing information on newer media forms like podcasts and YouTube; increased television and radio bookings; better assistance to military analysts and other "surrogates"; and the rapid-response group.
Here's the link to the site where Rumsfeld gets to critique the media reports he finds objectionable. You must read it to believe it.
It concludes with this bloggy "UPDATE: The New York Times has declined the Pentagon’s request to correct its editorial."The Pentagon today asked the New York Times to correct an editorial, which claimed that “There have never been enough troops, the result of Mr. Rumsfeld’s negligent decision to use Iraq as a proving ground for his pet military theories, rather than listen to his generals.” Whether the Times believes there were (or are) enough troops in Iraq, it is demonstrably untrue that troop levels in Iraq are the result of Secretary Rumsfeld’s “not listening to his generals.”