Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs in 'contentious' meeting over review

Rumsfeld

From Chris Plante
CNN National Security Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Concern by military officials over Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top-to-bottom review of the Pentagon led to a "contentious" meeting earlier this week between Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, senior military officials tell CNN.

The Tuesday meeting took place in the Joint Chiefs' secure conference room, known as "the tank," and lasted two hours, according to a senior official who asked to remain anonymous.

"Fifteen minutes of it were pretty contentious, then it settled down," the official said.

Rumsfeld assured the Joint Chiefs -- four-star officers in charge of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines -- that he is not close to making any radical changes or killing any major weapons programs, a senior official said. He also assured them that they will be kept in the loop as decisions are made.

As a result of the meeting, Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs are expected to meet every day next week, and regularly in the coming weeks, to discuss plans for the future of the military. But top brass are said to remain skeptical.

"I don't want to underplay the true nervousness of the services," a senior military official told CNN. "The services are scared."

The Joint Chiefs have been quietly expressing anxiety over Rumsfeld's close-to-the-vest management style and over their exclusion from a number of reviews Rumsfeld has commissioned with an eye toward changing the way the Defense Department conducts business.

The military chiefs are not the only people who have expressed reservations about the review process. Two of Rumsfeld's appointments were held up by the Senate after members of Congress complained that they, too, were not being sufficiently consulted. Last week, those nominations were finally approved after what a senior Republican aide described as "increased communication between the Pentagon and Capitol Hill on defense matters."

A well-placed official said "there was a big misunderstanding" between Rumsfeld and military leaders about the way the reviews would impact the services, budget process and force structures of the future.

In previous administrations, the service chiefs have traditionally been tapped to be the senior military advisors to the defense secretary on virtually all aspects of the massive department's management. Rumsfeld's relative exclusion of the military service chiefs, and reliance on retired officers and outsiders, has led to "hurt feelings," according to one retired four-star general.

Rumsfeld's behind-closed-doors reviews and the fact that he is "sometimes aggressive and abrasive" with the uniformed leadership is at the root of the ongoing friction, according to officials.

"There has been a lot of input, but not a lot of feedback" from Rumsfeld, a senior official said. "This has been a very informal process, and the Pentagon doesn't deal well with informal processes," he said.

Rumsfeld has said that any major changes to the military would be part of a broader, ongoing, four-year analysis the Pentagon regularly undertakes, known as the Quadrennial Defense Review. Significant changes to the military aren't expected to be included in the Pentagon budget until fiscal year 2003, which is normally submitted to Congress in the summer of 2002.