"Warheads: Cable News And the Fog of War"
Retired Col. Ken Allard examines his (and Clark's) experiences with SecDef Rumsfeld, as military commentators on CNN leading up to the war. Allard's book is called "Warheads: Cable News And the Fog of War," available at Amazon.
San Antonio Express-News, 11/15/06
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Some of us got an up-close and personal view of all this.
As "Warheads," my term for the principal military analysts of cable TV networks, we were granted unprecedented access to Rumsfeld and his inner circle
Tactfully termed "retired military advisers to the secretary of defense," the group, started in late 2002, included generals such as Wes Clark, Barry McCaffrey, Don Shepperd and Dave Grange, men with a profound understanding of war. Given the slightest chance, they might have offered Rumsfeld some usefully independent views.
We were, after all, doing precisely that every night on your TV. As the networks struggled to cater to an audience with few personal connections to war, the Warheads were hastily recruited to stand before the cameras and put things into context — hopefully in three minutes or less.
The Pentagon quickly grasped these new realities, reasoning it was senseless to cajole the press corps while making no effort to have the party line uttered from our lips.
During our sessions with him — 17 in all — it was difficult not to like Rumsfeld or admire his razor-sharp wit. But I didn't have to work for him or bear personal responsibility for his decisions. It became progressively clearer that the Warheads would never make the slightest dent in his mental defenses. From my humble seat at the far end of his conference table, I recalled one of the oldest jests in academe: That Rumsfeld was using the Warheads the same way a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination.
