24 May 2002
Defense Department Briefing Transcript, May 24
(Terrorism, India/U.S. defense meeting, Afghanistan/military action,
Iraq/U.S. contingency planning, Iran/WMD, India-Pakistan/tensions,
Wolfowitz/Singapore, World Cup/U.S. protection) (6350)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace,
vice chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed reporters May 24 at the
Pentagon.
Following is the Pentagon transcript:
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense News Briefing
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Friday, May 24, 2002
(Also participating was Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman, Joint Chiefs
of Staff)
Rumsfeld: Are we early? Son of a gun!
Good morning. A little skinny in the morning here, isn't it?
As the president travels this week to speak to friends and allies
abroad, it is useful to note that the war on terrorism is certainly
not America's war only and that terrorism is not just an American
problem. While terrorism has existed for decades as low-intensity
conflict, its rise in recent years, its frequency, its intensity and
its scope, as well as its use by terrorist networks with global reach,
make it a problem that -- not just a few countries, but indeed it's a
problem of civilized nations everywhere.
Terrorism has to be vigorously opposed and soundly defeated wherever
it exists. Whether in Afghanistan, in Europe, America, Asia or the
Middle East, we have to end state sponsorship and support of
terrorism, and we have to prevent authors of mass murder, as the
president has termed them, from gaining and using weapons of mass
destruction. And we have to be willing to help the security forces of
other countries to take strong stand against terrorism.
It's for these reasons that today we're not only in Afghanistan,
tracking down al Qaeda and Taliban, but we're also in -- helping in
Georgia, Yemen, the Philippines, as well. It's why we oppose nations
like those harboring and helping terrorists. And it's why we continue
to seek and appreciate the support of every nation that's willing to
join us in this important effort. Interestingly, currently there are
68 nations supporting the global war on terrorism. Twenty nations have
deployed more than 16,000 troops to Central Command's area of
responsibility. In Afghanistan alone, our coalition partners currently
make up more than half the number of non-Afghan forces working with
us.
Yet as focused as we are on the war against terrorism, we also
recognize the need to work with other nations in the region to enhance
security and stability. In that regard, over the past year, the United
States and India have charted a new course in our bilateral relations
and have recently completed the second round -- I guess it was
yesterday -- completed the second round of two rounds of talks, headed
by Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, and the -- not the minister
of defense, but the defense secretary, as they call it in India, Dr.
Yogindra Narain. And U.S. and India share important interests in
fighting terrorism and in countering the spread of missile and weapons
of mass destruction technology to dangerous regimes. Our talks over
the past two days dealt with a number of subjects, including
military-to-military exchanges, joint exercise, joint naval
operations, counterterrorism cooperation, as well as disaster relief
and humanitarian assistance.
We also expressed our country's very serious concerns about the
dangerous situation between India and Pakistan, and the need to reduce
tensions between the two countries. We made the point that war is not
an option, given the dangers of escalation and the risks of
uncertainty in an armed conflict between two nuclear-armed powers.
On a separate matter, yesterday there was a report circulating that
there were some 20 U.S. military missing in the Paktia area of
Afghanistan. None of us in the department were aware of the report.
We've since tracked it down. It turns out it was a release by North
Korea -- the Democratic -- so-called Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. As we indicated yesterday, it was not only not accurate, it was
undoubtedly purposely inaccurate.
Finally, later today, General Franks and others will brief on the
results of the review of the battle of Takur Ghar, which took place
earlier this year. Central Command has conducted a thorough review of
the battle. CENTCOM's briefing this afternoon will be straightforward,
but of necessity, it will be within the limits necessary to protect
certain operational details which we have to keep classified for the
protection of troops that are still conducting operations in
Afghanistan and elsewhere. General Franks will describe the ground
rules this afternoon, and we'll have a military -- from Tampa -- and
we'll have a military person here in the Washington Room to provide
some detail, I believe, on a background basis.
The battle, as you know, resulted in the tragic loss of seven American
troops. Their death -- deaths are a reminder not only of the dangers
that military men and women face in the war on terrorism but the valor
they display in the face of enemy fire, a fact that we remember with
special gratitude as we prepare for the Memorial Day weekend.
General Pace.
Pace: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Overnight, coalition Special Operations forces conducted a raid west
of Kandahar. As they were going into the compound, where there was
suspected Taliban leadership, they were fired upon. They fired back.
Initial reports are that they killed one and wounded two and that
there were no friendly casualties. They've also detained approximately
50 folks who were on the ground at that site and are going through the
initial processing of those individuals. And that's all we have on
that particular operation at this time.
I'd also like to join the secretary as we look forward to a very
peaceful and pleasant Memorial Day weekend to say "Thank you" to the
families of all those who have lost their sons and daughters in the
protection of our country and for those of who wear this uniform today
to rededicate ourselves to this country and to those who went before
us. We will not betray the wonderful legacy and freedom that we have
inherited.
Thank you.
Rumsfeld: Thank you.
Charlie.
Q: Mr. Secretary, Iraq: The airwaves and the newspapers are bound with
reports of possible U.S. plans for a possible invasion of Iraq, and
yet recently, senior administration officials, including the
president, seem to be trying to disabuse people of the notion that
there's any imminent invasion plan. The president said this weekend,
no plans on his desk, and he seemed to try to calm German worries
about it. General Franks says he's received no orders from you to
formulate a plan for an invasion of Iraq. And there are reports in the
newspapers that your senior military leadership has, indeed, told you
that this is not the time to do it. Could you perhaps shed some light
on this?
Rumsfeld: You know, Charlie, when you ask a question like that and
you've got about six assertions in it, then it forces me either to go
back and try to calibrate each one of those assertions, which may or
may not be accurate, or else to answer generally. And so I think I'll
-- without accepting the premises in your question, let me answer by
saying this. The Department of Defense has a responsibility to assure
that it remains, over time, in a position to do whatever the civilian
leadership of the country asks it to do. And this department is
clearly in a position to do what the civilian leadership has asked us
to do or may ask us to do.
With respect to any one country, we obviously don't get into
discussions about what conceivably could be done. And I don't mean to
give that as a pointed answer to Iraq; it's a pointed answer to any
country you might have happened to have mentioned. We simply don't
discuss that subject.
Q: Might I follow up? Are you receiving mixed messages or one message
from your military leadership -- that perhaps this might not be the
time, given other pressures in the war on terrorism, to invade Iraq?
Rumsfeld: Well, first of all, we've not proposed that a country be
invaded, to the military. Therefore, I don't know that it would -- I
think it would probably be incorrect to say that the military has
proposed something other than what I've proposed or anyone else has
proposed. It's -- the problem with -- first of all, there is no
military as such, just like there's no Europe and there's no
administration. There are elements, there are people, and obviously
you can find someone in a uniform who will tell you just about
anything you want to be told.
And the idea that there's some sort of a single voice -- (chuckles) --
that speaks from this building, either on the civilian side or the
military side, is simply not true, until the president makes a
decision about something, and -- in which case, people recognize that
that's the elected leadership of our country, and then we go about our
business, trying to fulfill it to the best of our ability.
But I think that it would be inaccurate to characterize it. Maybe
you'd like to comment. You're one of them. (Laughter.)
Pace: Sir, I am. I am. (Laughter.) Thank you for recognizing --
Rumsfeld: Goodness gracious!
Pace: I can't imagine a more robust flow of information between the
military officers and civilian leadership. Daily, the chairman and the
vice chairman, the secretary DepSecDef sit down first thing in the
morning and discuss world events. And as the day unfolds, we get
together several times a day. The Joint Chiefs have access and are
involved in a dialogue. So any portrayal of there being a lack of
opportunity for anything other than what it truly is, which is an open
dialogue between the civilian leadership and the military leadership,
is inaccurate. And I so much appreciate the opportunity I have to
speak my mind on whatever topic I decide to speak up on.
Q: So if you didn't feel it was time to invade Iraq, you'd feel free
to say so.
Pace: I'm not going to go to that point. I would tell you that I
absolutely --
Rumsfeld: (Laughs.)
Pace: -- not only feel free, but I feel duty-bound to speak my mind to
the civilian leadership of this country when it comes to operations
involving the military.
Rumsfeld: I would want to underline something I sort of said in my
first response: I hear all kinds of different views from people in
uniform. I talk to people at all levels. I hear different views
between General Pace and General Myers, just as they hear different
opinions expressed between Paul Wolfowitz and Don Rumsfeld. The -- it
is a very open, easy relationship that exists, and it is not
complicated. It is not mysterious.
It is a -- each of us continue to try to assure that we're working off
the same set of facts. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but
not their own facts. And my impression is that we manage to do that
very, very well, and, I think, any implication in any question by
someone who's marginally informed or being advised by someone who's
marginally informed to the contrary notwithstanding.
Q: Can I get --
Q: Mr. Secretary, can I do a follow-up on that, please?
Taking a different tack slightly: Given what you just said in your
reply to Charlie and recognizing the Pentagon's responsibility -- I
know you don't like "Pentagon" but -- Department of Defense's
responsibility -- let me ask you flat-out: Is the United States or
will the United States be prepared to invade any country by the end of
this year if necessary, if it's --
Rumsfeld: You've got to be kidding. (Laughter.)
Q: That's the third time you've said that to me, and --
Rumsfeld: (Laughs heartily.) My goodness gracious.
Look: You've got to understand the way the world works. The way the
world works is, the dumbest thing anyone could do would be to stand up
here and start previewing things that somebody's thinking about or not
thinking about or starting to disabuse you of each thing somebody
tells you that we're thinking about, because then the first time we
don't disabuse you, you'll say, "A-ha! That's what they're going to
do." We don't discuss those types of things. We haven't from the time
I arrived in the Pentagon, on January 20th of last year. And we won't
as long as I'm here.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Q: Can I ask about capabilities, specifically? If I could get each of
you to just give us an idea of what capabilities that the military has
would be strained or stressed in the event of a second conflict
somewhere in the world.
Rumsfeld: The answer to that is something like this -- and then, Pete,
you may want to comment. If you talk to a given CINC -- combatant
commander in a given area, you'd get an answer that was restricted to
that particular area of responsibility. If you talk to someone in the
department at the military or civilian level, you would probably get
an answer that would be appropriate for each CINC, and they'd be
different answers, and then nationwide, or worldwide, where you could
reallocate and reorder how these various types of capabilities
presently are located.
The second thing I would say, if we had a serious shortage of
something, I think it would be rather stupid to stand up here and
announce it to the world, don't you?
Third, what we do is, as things are used -- as they have been, to be
sure, in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- what we do is we see that
happening and then we say let's get ahead of the curve, and you go to
school on it, you learn. And you -- one of the lessons learned is that
from conflict to conflict, the rate of usage of different things
changes. And so your assumptions are that you -- you go into something
saying to yourself, "I've got 100 percent of what I would likely need
for that." But then you get into something and you discover, my
goodness, you're using it at a rate that's different, which means that
you've actually got 200 percent; you don't need half of what you got.
Or you're using more at a faster rate and, therefore, you've only got
50 percent of what you think you might need. And then what you do is
work with the people who make these various capabilities and either
start getting rid of the things you don't need or increasing the
things you do need. And it's a constant process. It's not complicated.
How'd I do?
Pace: Sir, you did great! (Laughter.)
I would simply add to that that your military is ready today to
execute whatever mission the civilian leadership of this country gives
us to do. The fact of the matter is, the more time you have to prepare
for that kind of mission, whatever it is, the more elegant the
solution could be.
But, as we learned on September 11th, we don't always get the chance
to pick when we have to respond. And when you think about what your
military did for you between 11 September and 7 October, when they
mustered the force and went to a landlocked country halfway around the
world, that we weren't even thinking about having to go to combat in,
it gives you some flavor for the flexibility that we bring to the
table. So I'm very comfortable that -- whether we have warning or not,
that we'll be ready to respond.
Q: Mr. Secretary, but it is true that the military has said repeatedly
they are stretched too thin.
Rumsfeld: What do you mean that "THE military has said repeatedly"?
Q: Military leaders --
Rumsfeld: Now come on!
Q: No, but uniformed officers --
Rumsfeld: You just heard what he said. He's in one!
Q: There -- aren't there other branches of the military?
Rumsfeld: Sure, there are other branches. But the military does not
say what you just said they say. Individuals from certain parts of the
country, world, will say that this or that needs to be increased or
decreased. That happens all the time. It happens in wartime. It
happens in peacetime.
Q: Many officers and also members of Congress have said repeatedly
recently, over recent months, they're stretched too thin, they need
more people, thousands of more people. So wouldn't that lead one to
believe that if you were to engage in another military conflict, that
it would be a problem, you would be stretched too thin, even more so?
Rumsfeld: I thought he just answered it. I thought he answered it
well.
Pace: The only thing I would add to that would be the fact that in
fact that, as directed by the secretary, we are looking at what we're
doing worldwide, that we've been doing for many, many years, to
determine whether or not the mission that we went on X years ago is
still a valid mission, and are there things that we can do to reduce
the number of things we may be doing that are not -- no longer needed.
But as far as our current missions and responsibilities and the
projected ones, I'm very comfortable that we are ready to respond.
Rumsfeld: You know, just a little footnote in history. I believe the
record will show that nine-tenths of everything that was taken over to
the Middle East to fight the war of Desert Storm a decade or so ago
was brought back unused. Now what does that suggest? It suggests that
that -- (chuckles) --
Q: Overkill.
Rumsfeld: Well, no. No, it -- what it suggests is, it's hard to know
precisely what you think might be necessary, and you want to be safe,
so you have more than you think you're going to need. But that's not
irrelevant. It's worth -- when you hear people say what they're saying
to you, and then you hear someone in uniform stand up and say to the
world what General Pace just said, and you want to kind of weigh them,
I'd give a little more weight to Pete, myself.
Q: Well, just to follow up on what you said, nine-tenths they brought
home. So you're saying, next time, no one has to bring nearly as much?
Rumsfeld: I didn't say a word. I just said it's an interesting little
footnote in history.
Barbara?
Q: I'd like to shift gears for a second to something else completely
-- Iran. The president, on the trip to Europe in the last couple of
days, has talked about his concerns about Russia's nuclear
relationship with Iran, and in particular, Iran's efforts to get
nuclear weapons. I wondered if you can shed any light, your views, on
your concerns about the progress you are worried about that Iran may
be making in its nuclear program, the proliferation risk that that
would pose in Iran, and whether you also have concerns that Russia has
an ongoing nuclear relationship with Iran that is of concern to you.
Rumsfeld: Well! I've just been asked the question that leads to an
answer, which is then characterized as inflammatory in the media. And
the question is, should I refuse to answer --
Q: No! (Laughter.)
Rumsfeld: -- and therefore not be accused of being inflammatory or
alarmist or something? Or should I just give the same honest answer
I've given for six, eight, 10, 12 months?
Q: The same honest answer.
Rumsfeld: All right. If you'll promise not to characterize it as
inflammatory or alarmist or anything.
Q: Well, there's a lot of witnesses in the room --
Rumsfeld: Okay.
Q: -- so I'll have to be careful.
Rumsfeld: You bet I'm concerned about Iran and its unambiguous effort
to develop -- already has -- some weapons of mass destruction, but to
develop the full spectrum of weapons of mass destruction. It's clear,
it's unambiguous. And that is something that has been discussed in
roughly the same tone of voice by me and by dozens of people over a
prolonged period of time. It's not new. The president is concerned
about it. And the president apparently has raised it in his meetings
in Europe with, I suspect, more than one friend and ally. It's
something we raise in meetings with other countries because it's
something that ought to be of concern to that region and to the world.
Q: Do you agree with the assessment that some people make that now
Iran could be within several months of having some sort of usable,
realistic nuclear device? Do you think they're years away? Do you
think they're making recent progress in nuclear weapons?
Rumsfeld: Oh, there's no question about it, they've been getting
assistance and they've been making good progress and they have been
determined to accomplish that goal. And I'm not going to get into how
long it will take them, but there's no question but that they're on a
path to achieve that, and they're receiving assistance from countries
they shouldn't.
Tony?
Q: To follow up on that point and get onto the missile defense issue:
There was a report today that they've launched their fifth Shahab-3
flight test. A, is that true? B, what's the significance in terms of
the regional threat on missiles? And C, what's your concern about --
this is a reminder that Russia is actively helping Iran develop that
missile.
Rumsfeld: They've been getting help from North Korea, for example,
with respect to missiles. They also have developed their own
indigenous capability to produce ballistic missiles of increasing
range. I have not seen any data that I could answer the question about
the Shahab test that you're referring to.
(To General Pace.) Have you?
Pace: No, sir, I've not.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Q: (Inaudible) -- that development program, it's well known that they
are developing it. It could range to hit Israel, hit southern Turkey.
And Russia has helped them in terms of some of the booster engines. I
mean, what's the significance here other -- that program along the
lines of Iran's nuclear capability? Together, those are a major --
Rumsfeld: Iran is not a country that has warm, civil relationships
with very many nations in the world. A country of that character that
then proceeds to develop weapons of mass destruction and the ability
to deliver them is an unhappy prospect for its neighbors and for other
countries in the world who want to contribute to a more peaceful and
stable world, as we do. Our circumstance, our ability to continue as
free people and not be terrorized and to enjoy the benefits of world
trade and the economic intercourse that exists all across the world
today is damaged by fear of war or war. It's damaged by instability.
It changes everything.
And it is so central to our well being as a people and to the people
of Western Europe and of South America and the rest of the world that
the idea that nations of the character of Iran or Iraq have these
weapons or will have these weapons ought to be of concern to thinking
people.
Q: Mr. Secretary, let me take you back to India and Pakistan for a
moment. You said in your opening --
Rumsfeld: Ask General Pace a tough one.
Q: Either one of you can answer -- or both, preferably.
You said that war is not an option. The United States is trying to
"lower the temperature" between those two countries. What is your
assessment about whether India and Pakistan -- to what extent do they
actually have a capability to wage a nuclear conflict? And have you
had any estimates on how catastrophic that would be? Are you using
those kind of estimates to try to convince them to step back?
Rumsfeld: Well, there's no question but that they have a capability of
waging a nuclear war. And needless to say, countries that are
interested in that not happening think about those things.
Q: Yeah -- I mean, obviously it would be a terrible tragedy. Do you
have any idea -- has there been any estimates done on how many people
would die or what -- how terrible it would be?
Rumsfeld: I have a lot of information, and I'm not inclined to get
into it here. But it would be bad. It would not be pretty. It would be
not short-lived.
Yes?
Q: Sir, your deputy, Mr. Wolfowitz, is going to Singapore for this
regional security meeting.
Rumsfeld: He is indeed.
Q: What is the U.S. doing now and plans to do for the security in
Asia? And I have another question, on the World Cup games in Korea and
Japan. I understand that you have some troops there who are --
(inaudible) -- the games. Would you provide any detail on that?
Rumsfeld: Paul Wolfowitz is going to be at the Singapore defense
conference. We, needless to say, have a very good relationship with
Singapore. We take aircraft carriers into a port that they've provided
and facilitated for us to use.
We have relationships with so many of those countries. Just in recent
days, I've met with leaders from Malaysia and various other countries.
Australia has been here not too long ago. So we're -- we have
wonderful military-to-military relationships in that part of the
world.
You're also correct -- (to the general) -- do you know the details of
the World Cup?
Pace: I know that General Schwartz, who just left as the U.S.
commander there, has been replaced at the end of -- beginning of this
month by General LaPorte, had worked very closely with our Korean
partners to assist them in making sure that, number one, the U.S.
forces -- that the U.S. force protection is in place for the World Cup
games, and to be able to provide intelligence and other kinds of
support that the Korean government might ask us for, to ensure that
the games are able to go off peacefully.
But I would not want to get into specifics about what they have
planned, because it is, again, into ongoing operations, and that would
be not right.
Rumsfeld: Yes?
Q: If Pakistan proceeds with the plan to pull troops out of the Afghan
border to the degree that was mentioned, would you look to increase
the number of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan or push harder
to cross the border?
Rumsfeld: There's no question but that the tension on the
Indian-Pakistan border has altered already the number of Pakistani
troops that are on the Afghan border, and certainly altered the number
that could be there and would very likely be there, were there not
that tension. General Franks is aware of that, and it would be the
combatant commander's decision as to how he dealt with that in the --
in -- if and when additional forces depart the Afghan border, which
they have not yet done.
Yes?
Q: Has your contingency planning for evacuating U.S. people from the
embassies in Pakistan or in India changed at all in the last couple of
days, given the rising tensions over there?
Rumsfeld: No. Not to my knowledge. As you know, one of the
responsibilities of the department is to continuously keep on the
shelf various types of contingency and evacuation plans, but they have
not been changed that I know of.
(To General Pace.) Do you know of any?
Pace: No, sir. We periodically review those to make sure that they are
responsive to whatever the contingency might be.
Rumsfeld: Yeah?
Q: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to go back to General Pace on Iraq for just
a second. You said you were duty-bound to tell the administration the
Joint Chiefs' thoughts. Are you -- do you also feel duty-bound to tell
the American people what the people in the Joint Chiefs of Staff are
saying, if they have any concerns about an Iraq situation,
particularly sending in troops where they might face biological
weapons, or sending them in where they might need a large number? Do
you feel a duty-bound obligation to say something to the American
people about what the Joint Chiefs of Staff might be saying?
Pace: First of all, the dialogue -- and it is a dialogue that goes on
daily, and frequently hourly -- between the civilian leadership and
the uniform leadership, is very robust and is encouraged --
Rumsfeld: That's the understatement of the morning.
Pace: -- and is encouraged. So I feel like I, personally, and the
other chiefs, have as much opportunity as we need to say whatever we
want to say to our leaders. I will tell you that I believe I do inform
the civilian population of the country as a whole when I inform the
civilian leaders that they've elected of whatever my concerns may or
may not be in a particular area of the world. So my responsibility is,
as a member of the Joint Chiefs, to provide the best military advice I
can to our elected and appointed civilian leaders.
Q: And you can't share that now with the American people, what some of
those concerns are?
Pace: First of all, the short answer to the question is no.
(Laughter.) But the longer answer is, is that we have dialogue about
operations worldwide. And to try to focus that down into one spot
right now is truly to do a disservice to the amount of energy that's
being expended on all of our responsibilities in the war on terrorism.
Q: General, also on Iraq, they have fired some SAMs at us recently,
and we've hit some other SAM sites recently as well. Do you see any
indication that this is any kind of escalation on the part of Saddam,
or if it's just part of his usual kind of saber-rattling in the no-fly
zone?
Pace: We've looked at the historical data with regard to how many
missiles and antiaircraft weapons have been fired. This is consistent
with what's been going on the last several years. It is also
consistent that when we are fired on, we are going to take action. And
as you know, a couple of days ago, there were two different responses:
one that destroyed a radar and the other that destroyed two
communications facilities. So we are going to continue to fly the
missions that we've been given, and we are going to continue to
respond if attacked.
Q: General, could you say in the latest raid in Afghanistan who or
what that was aimed at, and also, whether in the previous raid, on May
12th, whether you've determined at this point that any al Qaeda or
Taliban were captured or killed in that raid?
Pace: The raid that happened overnight west of Kandahar was aimed a
Taliban leadership compound. Do not know yet what we have there other
than one dead, two wounded and 50-plus who have been detained and are
undergoing initial screening.
On the May 12th event, we are still in the process of interviewing
those that we have. And as you know, it's a very difficult process,
because they don't always tell us exactly who they are. They're not
always very forthcoming. So it takes time to be able to get through
all the questioning we have to determine whether or not we have, in
fact, an innocent civilian, in which case they'll be turned back into
the population, or someone who needs to be retained because he's a
combatant.
Q: Do you even know at this point whether they're Taliban or al Qaeda
among those?
Pace: We do not -- I do not know, and I don't think we know yet.
Q: Mr. Secretary, a question about the briefing we're going to get
this afternoon: I know we'll get the details of the investigation. I
know you've already been briefed on it. And I just want to ask you --
Rumsfeld: (How do you ?) know all that? (Soft laughter.)
Q: I just want to ask you generally, do you believe -- and without
going into any details of what happened -- do you believe that the
U.S. commanders made the best decisions they could at the time, given
the information they had? Or do you think that, in retrospect, some
mistakes were made in that operation?
Rumsfeld: Well, I -- what I'd prefer to do is to respond to that next
week, after you've had a chance to hear the briefing and to walk
through it, because I think you'll find several things. I think you'll
find that the briefing is -- correction -- that the review that was
undertaken was a very thorough, well done review. Second: I think
you'll be impressed with the heroism of the soldiers and the
individuals who were involved in many elements of that battle.
Third, I think what you'll find is, as in most human endeavors, that
plans are never executed exactly the way they're developed, nor are
budgets, nor are anything that we do when we get up in the morning, as
to what my day's going to be. I get a new calendar handed me about
every 15 minutes, as some change has been made. And that's because
what you do is, you develop a plan, and then you walk out into the
real world, and everyone's not arranged exactly the way your plan
suggested, and things evolve in ways that are different, whether it's
weather or circumstances of other types.
I know a number of the people who were involved in that activity, at
the senior level. I visited in the hospital with a number of the
individuals who were wounded in the battle. And what I thought I would
do -- and that is the military individual who will be here, who will
not be identified and will not be speaking on the record; he'll be
speaking on background basis -- was to give you a chance to see one of
those individuals, the person who conducted the review, who walked
over all the real estate involved, and allow him to help you walk
through and get calibrated with respect to what is known and what is
not knowable and what is speculative. And it is a useful thing to do,
and I think it'll be worth your time.
Pace: May I add to that, please, because I have been in a couple of
firefights in my lifetime, and I would simply like to point out that
it's very difficult, sitting in an air-conditioned environment with
good lighting, to fully appreciate all that happens on the
battlefield. It's also very difficult, when you're in that battle, to
have the exact same vision of what happened as the man next to you,
because each person's experience in combat is so drastically
different. And it gets more different the more individual weapons are
pointed at you as an individual.
So as we go about this -- and I certainly understand your curiosity --
let's not forget that this is a(n) extremely chaotic environment,
inside of which individuals do things heroically that normal human
beings wouldn't even think about doing, but they look to their left,
and they look to their right, and they realize that their fellow
soldier, their fellow Marine is depending on them. The fact that a
soldier or a Marine may recall something different than the others
does not mean that either one of them is wrong. It's just that it is
an enormously complex, chaotic environment -- people shooting at you,
things going "bang," vision obscured, and there's a lot of things that
you don't even know about.
I can recall in great detail my own personal combat experiences, but I
will guarantee you that my platoon mates would recall those exact same
incidents very differently. And I simply ask you to remember that as
you go through your curiosity, as you should, about what really
happened there.
Rumsfeld: We'll make this the last question.
Q: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I'd like to get back to India- Pakistan
for a minute. Given this new military relationship with India and the
fact that we have troops -- forces in Pakistan, what kind of leverage
or influence can you exert, or are you exerting, to de-escalate the
tension between those two countries?
Rumsfeld: Needless to say, the United States, and many, many other
nations in the world, have a great interest in what's taking place in
India and Pakistan. You're quite right, we do have forces in Pakistan
and we have large numbers of Americans in both countries. And so it's
not just the United States, but it's our friends in Western Europe.
And any right-thinking nation is going to -- cannot help but to
observe the growing tension that exists between those two countries
and pray that they recognize the dangers that they're putting
themselves in and their people and their economic circumstance and
their political futures. It is a difficult situation.
And -- you used the word "leverage." I'm uncomfortable with it. These
are two sovereign nations; they make their own decisions. We have
interests and relationships with each, as do many of our friends. And
I know the president, and Secretary Powell and others in the
administration, as well as in this department, have been working with
both Pakistan and India in a variety of different ways to see if there
aren't ways that each of them can begin that process of stepping down
rather than stepping up.
Have a nice Memorial Day.
Q: Same to you. Have a good weekend.
Rumsfeld: Thank you.
(end Pentagon transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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