Word: wolfowitz
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...teams go, Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, could not be more unlikely. Rumsfeld is a Cook County, Ill., politician, while Wolfowitz would be more at home at the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate. That makes them the most interesting one-two combination this side of Bush-Cheney. If Rumsfeld is the face, mouth and strong right arm of the war in Iraq, Wolfowitz--the intellectual godfather of the war--is its heart and soul. Whereas Rumsfeld talks about Iraq like a technician, Wolfowitz sounds more like a prophet. Says a close associate of the deputy...
Rumsfeld offered Wolfowitz his current post with an invitation to serve as his intellectual alter ego, a senior aide says. Their offices are a short walk apart along the Pentagon's E-Ring. Wolfowitz frequently slips down a back hallway, peers through a peephole into his boss's suite and, if Rumsfeld is alone, walks right in. "He's got great power of concentration," says Wolfowitz, "so you can open the door--it doesn't disturb him--until he pauses, and I ask, 'Can you take a minute?'" They talk half a dozen times a day, on matters small...
...justification for the memo, such as it is, warrants setting out in full. "It is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States," writes Wolfowitz, "to limit competition for the prime contracts of those procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, coalition partners and force-contributing nations. Therefore, it is clearly in the public interest to limit prime contracts to companies from these countries." As a logical proposition, that paragraph can be reduced to the following: Because A, therefore A--the sort of tautology that would get any high school student a failing grade...
...memo's argument that "limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq" (in other words, war naysayers have to join the occupation if they hope to fully cash in) "and in future efforts" (what future efforts, by the way?), its timing was idiotic. Wolfowitz's findings were posted on a Pentagon website just as President Bush was phoning other heads of state to ask them to give a fair hearing to former Secretary of State James Baker III, whom Bush has just deputed to help renegotiate Iraq's hefty debt. Of the $21 billion...
GLOBAL AGENDA: The baffling Wolfowitz memo...