Inside the Ring

Luti moves

William J. Luti, a Pentagon architect of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, has moved to the White House as a National Security Council staffer. His new title: special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy strategy.

Mr. Luti ran the Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. The office came under a barrage of criticism from author Seymour Hersh and other leftists, who claimed it was conducting its own intelligence collection.

Republicans say inquiries by objective congressional investigators showed the office was analyzing intelligence from the CIA, not collecting its own.

Mr. Luti’s departure coincides with the resignation of Mr. Feith, one of the closest advisers to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Mr. Feith’s chosen successor, Eric S. Edelman, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will have a chance to pick his own top Persian Gulf adviser.

When Mr. Edelman will take the post is not known. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is demanding more documents from the Feith policy shop on its intelligence work. A Levin spokeswoman said the committee has not scheduled Mr. Edelman for a confirmation vote.

China report flak

After we reported last week that the Pentagon held up its long-overdue report to Congress on Chinese military power, the official newspaper of the Chinese military wrote that the delay was because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had softened his position on China.

The Chinese propaganda organ PLA Daily stated Tuesday that Mr. Rumsfeld has “changed his tune” and “moderated” his views on what Beijing is now calling the “concocted … China military threat theory.”

“It has long been known that Rumsfeld has the ‘problem’ of not being politically sensitive in his words and deeds,” the report said, noting his dig at “old Europe.”

The military paper noted that Mr. Rumsfeld is opposed in the administration by a “pragmatic faction” of pro-China U.S. government officials who supposedly include President Bush.

A senior Pentagon official joked that the Chinese propagandists behind the article are “at least entertaining” if inaccurate.

Pentagon sources tell us the forthcoming China military report will be tougher than previous assessments. For the first time, it will include a section outlining five worrying scenarios in which China poses a major challenge to the United States in the coming years.

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