GQ yesterday published a long article critical of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. One of the things it disclosed for the first time was Rumsfeld's practice of often placing Biblical verses on the cover sheet of the top secret Worldwide Intelligence Update delivered daily to President George W. Bush and a few top military leaders. Here is GQ's slide show of a number of the cover sheets that carry Biblical quotes to embellish images from the previous day's battle front. GQ explained the origin of the cover sheets:
These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout—as one Pentagon staffer would later say—"would be as bad as Abu Ghraib."
But the Pentagon’s top officials were apparently unconcerned about the effect such a disclosure might have on the conduct of the war or on Bush’s public standing. When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because "my seniors"—JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself—appreciated the cover pages.
[Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
UPDATE: New York Times coverage this morning of the CQ article quotes former Pentagon officials as saying that they doubted President Bush regularly saw the Pentagon briefing, which was less complete than his daily intelligence briefing. One former Pentagon spokesman said while he had no recollection of the Biblical quotes, he doubted that Rumsfeld would have tolerated them or used them to influence the White House.
