Buzz Kill

From a July 22, 2002 news conference. Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary on Wednesday Nov. 8, 2006, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses. (AP/Rick Bowmer, File photo)

In June, the media reported that publishers were "abuzz" over the possibility that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was going to drop his biggest snowflake yet—a memoir. Now, it appears that the media speculation was wrong.

Last week, the New York Post reported that Rumsfeld has "received only tepid interest from a handful of publishers."

People around the world aren’t going to be dressing up like little Rummys and waiting in line all night at Barnes and Noble in anticipation of this book release. This should come as no surprise. Rumsfeld resigned in November 2006 with an approval rating around 30 percent. Everyone from Republican lawmakers to military publications wanted him to be history.

But a better explanation for the lack of public enthusiasm is that Rumsfeld is unlikely to say anything new or interesting. In the past, Rumsfeld has expressed a disdain for tell-all autobiographies. When former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill wrote a highly critical memoir about his time in the Bush White House, Rumsfeld called him to complain. "‘What is this business? Someone tells me you’re going to write a, you know, one of those’—what do you call them? Sour grapes or—you know, one of those insider things," Rumsfeld said he told O’Neill.

According to a recent CBS News poll, a majority of the American public now believes that the United States was wrong to invade Iraq. But they don’t need to read a whole book defending the administration’s decisions in Iraq; we can get that from Tony Snow every day. If Rumsfeld really wants people to read his book, here are just few questions that he should answer:

— Why did you ignore the advice of your generals and military commanders on Iraq? Prior to the war, Rumsfeld’s Pentagon ignored warnings by then-Army chief of staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki that the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower. On six occasions, senior Pentagon planners on the Joint Staff went to Rumsfeld and requested more troops for the war. Each time, Rumsfeld rejected them.

Additionally, Brig. Gen. Mark E. Scheid, former chief of the Logistics War Plans Division, said that shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan Rumsfeld ordered his commanders to start planning for an invasion of Iraq. Yet he threatened to "fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

— When did you first learn about the torture at Abu Ghraib? On May 7, 2004, Rumsfeld told the Senate and House Armed Services Committees that he had no knowledge of the extensive abuses at Abu Ghraib. "I wish we had known more, sooner, and been able to tell you more sooner, but we didn’t," said Rumsfeld, claiming that the first time he had seen the photographs was in media reports. Yet Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who led the Pentagon’s investigation into the abuses, said that Rumsfeld’s testimony was "simply not true." "The photographs were available to him — if he wanted to see them," said Taguba.

— Why did you fail to mobilize homeland security defenses prior to 9/11? Two months before 9/11, both Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft received a CIA briefing about an imminent Al Qaeda attack on an American target. It was the same briefing given earlier to the White House. The presentation was a "10 on a scale of one to 10," warning that Al Qaeda "was poised to strike again." But according to administration officials, Rumsfeld was preoccupied with his plans to reduce the size of the Army and deploy a national ballistic missile defense system.

Rumsfeld once authored "Rumsfeld’s Rules," a manual that told presidential aides, "If you foul up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes." For years and years, he has delayed admitting his mistakes and allowed them to define his legacy. He even went so far as to sharply criticize Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she conceded that the administration had made thousands of "tactical errors." Rumsfeld said last year, "Of course the implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing."

So here’s some advice for Rumsfeld: skip writing chapters on why you decided to enter public service; who inspired you as a boy growing up; and what books you’ve been reading since you left the administration. Instead, focus on what we’ve been waiting four years to hear—what went wrong.