The day after P
resident Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time SECDEF appeared at Kansas State University for the Alf Landon Lecture Series, offering his view of the way forward in the war on terror. Among several suggestions, Rumsfeld told the 5,000-strong audience, “National security policies can no longer be separated into the functions of defense, diplomacy, and development.” In what is becoming a familiar call, Rumsfeld advocates better collaboration among DOD, State, CIA, Homeland, Justice, and more. He also laid some blame for current circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq on the budgeting process. Rumsfeld asserted, “The realities on the ground in the rest of the world do not correspond to the yearly federal budgetary process—where it can take one year to craft a budget, another to get it approved by Congress, and then a third year to execute that then somewhat stale program.”
Senior U.S. military officials involved in restructuring the troubled LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program now project confidence that it will achieve operational capability in the early 2030s.