Rekna

Rumsfield issued a series of memos nicknamed the snowflake memos. They were nicked named such because they came from him like snowflakes, tiny but often. Apparently he was issuing memos into the double digits each day.

The controversy of these memos is in their content.

He said

sell the war with bumper sticker statments (Edwards was right about the "War on terror" being a bumper sticker slogan)

link Iraq with Iran (Are you sure the administration doesn't want to attack Iran?)

Keep elevating the threat

Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realise they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists

from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labour, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed

Go out and push people back, rather than simply defending (referring to the media)

He wanted to redefine terrorism as a "worldwide insurgency"

The memos paint a picture of a racist man who was hell bent on keeping American's afraid and using that fear to justify the war and possibly future wars against Iran. The white house has backed away from these memos but I find it hard to believe that they didn't know that this was the way Rumsfield worked and they themselves didn't condone it since this is exactly what people have been saying their strategy has been since the beginning.

If you ever wondered why the white house claims executive privilege on every document that they touch these memos show why. I have no doubt that memos, documents, and deliberations among the white house staff are riddled with this type of rhetoric.