Rumsfeld’s birth chart has several interesting features worth discussing. The most striking is the Sun/Pluto conjunction in the 8th house, in a tight square with Uranus. A natal Sun/Pluto aspect tends to intensify and focus the will, lending it command, precision, and efficiency. It is an aspect of incredible power when wielded to its full potential. The urge to control and manipulate events is quite compelling, as well as the sense that releasing control to others will unleash some kind of destruction or chaos. The 8th house placement adds an instinctive attunement to the subtle forces underlying situations and a capacity to manipulate others and utilize their talents constructively. The square from Uranus brings to this potent conjunction a rather abrupt unpredictability and a determination to push forward despite obstacles and the opinions of others. Uranus adds a certainty of one’s own truth, and little room for circumspection or self-doubt.
It is quite significant that from November 2002 through November 2004, transiting Pluto is making a quincunx to Rumsfeld’s natal Sun/Pluto conjunction. Such a transit sets off the innate force in the natal aspect and magnifies it. Clearly, this transit is augmenting the reach, depth, and breadth of Rumsfeld’s dominance and his impact on the planet.
The Ascendant in Rumsfeld’s chart is 10 Sagittarius, conjunct the fixed star Antares. Antares is the fierce red star seen in the center of the constellation Scorpio and is one of the most powerful stars in the sky. It brings an aggressive, belligerent, vindictive and dangerous quality analogous to its position at the “head” of the vicious Scorpion. If combined with the Ascendant, as it is in this chart, Antares will permeate the entire personality of the individual.
The ruler of Rumsfeld’s Sagittarius Ascendant and, hence, the ruler of the chart, is Jupiter in Leo in the 9th house. A person with an active 9th house tends to have a strong belief system that brings the disparate elements of life into a meaningful whole. This can manifest as a religion, a philosophy, a legal system, or anything that weaves together the strands of life into a comprehensive worldview. With three planets, including the chart ruler, and the Moon’s South Node in the 9th house, this impulse is very strong in our Secretary of Defense. This becomes particularly important due to a potent progressed conjunction currently waxing in Rumsfeld’s chart.
Since 1997, progressed Jupiter has been conjunct progressed Neptune in the 9th house of Rumsfeld’s chart. The aspect will culminate in October 2003 at 8Virgo25, waning slowly over the following year. This Jupiter/ Neptune combination indicates a 6-year period during which an increasingly strong ideological attitude has been developing in Rumsfeld.
Jupiter expands and brings optimism to Neptune’s utopian dreams. Neptune can be magnificent for inner spiritual experience, but when tied to goals and aspirations on the earth plane of existence, it tends to move into the illusory. It seems likely that this progressed Jupiter/progressed Neptune conjunction is the astrological indicator of Rumsfeld’s current neoconservative worldview, the same view that has dominated the foreign policy of George Bush. Its goals are to maximize American hegemony as a means of serving America’s security and economic interests in the world and to prevent the emergence of any significant challenge to that hegemony. Establishing a foothold in Iraq, by ousting Saddam Hussein, and setting up a compliant regime in his place, is seen as the first step.
The Neptune element here manifests in a total blindness to the realities and complexities of a multidimensional world and the immense power of people’s resistance to being manipulated and controlled by a “benevolent” despotic American imperialism. There is a minimizing of the power of “other” and a maximizing of the power of “self”. The grandiose element comes from Jupiter, in the implication that America has the right, the means, and the wherewithal to actually direct and control the planet.
Not insignificantly, the single most important progression currently in George Bush’s chart is the progressed Sun (currently 8Virgo20) conjunction with natal Mars (9Virgo18), which runs from May 2003 through early June 2004. Rumsfeld’s progressed Jupiter/progressed Neptune (8Virgo25) falls in the same degree, suggesting that his grandiose schemes and unbridled and unrealistic optimism have a direct impact on the emerging militarism of George Bush. We have already seen this play out in the wildly optimistic and insufficient planning for post-war Iraq. We will see it again in July and August 2003, when transiting Mars makes its station in opposition to this sensitive degree, thereby triggering the whole configuration.
Concurrent with Bush’s progressed Sun/Mars aspect (May 2003 through early June 2004), Rumsfeld‘s progressed Midheaven (12 Sagittarius) will oppose his natal Mars from June 2003 through June 2004, falling exactly on the horizon line of the US chart. The connection to the US chart shows how much Rumsfeld’s militant ambitions will directly impact the US. The overlap between the Bush and Rumsfeld charts suggests that these two will experience a waxing of militaristic and aggressive tendencies simultaneously, likely reinforcing one another, from now through the first five or six months of 2004.
This militant zeal is likely to hit some huge roadblocks, however, from mid-September through mid-November 2003 and again in late May and June 2004, when Saturn conjuncts the US Sun and quincunxes the US Ascendant. These will be grievous crisis periods for the administration, when arrogant overreach and misbegotten plans turn to ashes in the collective neo-con mouth, and the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.
