Plan 1003 was repeatedly updated and presented to Rumsfeld, and each time, according to the planner, Rumsfeld said, “You’ve got too much ground force - go back and do it again.” In the planner’s view, Rumsfeld had two goals: to demonstrate the efficacy of precision bombing and to “do the war on the cheap.” Rumsfeld and his two main deputies for war planning, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, “were so enamored of ’shock and awe’ that victory seemed assured,” the planner said.
- From Seymour Hersh’s article in this week’s New Yorker

If History Had Been Populated With Rumsfelds…

The Trojan Pony - At the urging of General Rumsfeldopolis, a nearly life-sized papier mache pony is offered as a “gift” to the Trojans and left at the gate. The two Greek soldiers concealed inside suffocate and are discovered dead when the pony falls apart. Helen stays in Troy and makes the best of it.

The Ides of March. And April - Councilor Rumsfeldius supplies Brutus and his conspirators with lightweight balsa wood knives for their assassination. Caesar is badly bruised and dies 26 days later, leaving him ample time to identify his murderers to an angry Rome.

The Charge of the Very Light Brigade - Lord Cardigan rides out with his 13th Light Dragoons and 17th Lancers to lead a mad charge at Balaclava. At the advice of Sir Donald of Rum, however, Cardigan sends his men into the breach one at a time at 15 minute intervals. Guns to the right of them, guns to the left of them, each soldier is exterminated immediately by the puzzled but obliging Russian gunners. The “tactical onslaught” takes three and a half weeks and ends in the elimination of the Light Brigade, after which Alfred, Lord Tennyson commemorates the battle in his epic poem, “What the Hell Were They Thinking?”

The Normandy Excursion - In 1944, 24 U.S. Marines storm the beach at Normandy, wearing bathing suits and “deploying tactical chaise lounges and inviting cabanas.” Hitler is shocked but not particularly “awed,” and the expected “Axis Beach Party (or “B-Day”)” followed by an Allied sneak attack never materializes.