On November 6, 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent a classified memo to President Bush. “In total contradiction to years of protestations by the defense secretary that Iraq policy was yielding satisfactory progress, the memo called for a ‘major adjustment’ because ‘what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.’ There followed a slew of haphazard suggestions, many of them echoing ideas recently advanced by Democrats opposed to the administration’s war policy. ‘Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them)–go minimalist’ ran one suggestion. Some of the suggestions (helpfully labeled as ‘less attractive’) were for options that Bush, and until recently Rumsfeld himself, had repeatedly rejected, such as ‘Set a firm withdrawal date to leave.’ “
– Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld, Page 222