Asked what type of job they think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is doing, Americans overwhelmingly say his performance is “only fair” to “poor,” according to a recent Harris Poll. The survey also showed that Rumsfeld’s positive rating was at 78 percent shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, while now only 35 percent of Americans cast his performance as “excellent” or “pretty good.” In fact, since April 2003, Rumsfeld’s positive rate has dropped fairly consistently from 71 percent to today’s 35 percent.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
