The tension came to a head in late 2002 when Rumsfeld sent a testy memo telling Rice to “stop giving tasks and guidance to combatant commanders and the joint staff.” He wrote, “You and the NSC staff need to understand that you are not in the chain of command. Since you cannot seem to accept that fact, my only choices are to go to the President and ask him to tell you to stop or to tell anyone in DoD not to respond to you or the NSC staff. I have decided to take the latter course. It [sic] it fails, I’ll have to go to the President. One way or the other, it will stop, while I am Secretary of
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