20 August 2002
Defense Department Briefing Transcript
(Afghanistan/rebuilding efforts, Iraq/al-Qaida/international opinion,
war games/outcome/process, Rumsfeld/Wednesday meeting with Bush, DoD
transformation/funding, emerging threats/developing countermeasures)
(7660)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace briefed the media at the Pentagon
August 20.
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002 -- 1:01 p.m. EDT
(Also participating was Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, Vice Chairman,
Joint Chiefs of Staff.)
Rumsfeld: Good afternoon. I have mentioned on several occasions the
remarkable contributions that are being made by the United States Army
Civil Affairs teams, as well as by our coalition partners, as to the
rebuilding of Afghanistan. And I thought it might be useful to provide
a somewhat more detailed picture of some of those efforts.
Our goal in Afghanistan, clearly, is to create conditions so the
country does not again become a terrorist training camp. Terrorists
are like parasites; they seek out weak and struggling countries to
serve as hosts for their attacks on innocent men, women and children.
If we are to ensure that terrorist networks do not return to take over
Afghanistan once again, then we have to help the Afghan people build
the infrastructure that will allow them to achieve true
self-government and self-reliance.
They need schools to educate the young so they can grow up to be good
citizens and mathematicians, scientists -- people who will determine
the future of their country. They need roads and bridges to facilitate
commerce between the different regions and to make the country
hospitable to foreign investment. They need irrigation so their
farmers can earn a living and feed the Afghan people. And they need
clean water and hospitals to prevent the outbreak of disease.
And that's why the U.S. Army Civil Affairs teams are working in some
10 regions of the country, digging wells, rebuilding schools, bridges
and hospitals. The Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task
Force, I'm told, has completed 58 of 118 scheduled projects in
Afghanistan. They've rebuilt four regional hospitals and clinics in
Kabul, Mazar, Herat and Konduz, 38 schools in 10 regions, 75 wells to
provide decent drinking water, they've completed reconstruction of the
Bagram Bridge and the road connecting Bagram to Kabul. More projects
are in process, including 10 more medical facilities, 20 more schools,
four agricultural products, two roads, two bridges, and 144 additional
wells.
To provide a sense of what the impact of these projects really is, I
have some "before and after" pictures:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2002/g020820-D-6570C.html.
This is the Sultan Razia High School in Kabul before and after. The
Army Civil Affairs teams restored it inside and out, refurbished
floors, replaced windows and restored electricity.
The next one is the Rohshana-I-Balkhi school in Mazar, a co-ed school
that will educate about a thousand Afghan boys and girls.
The next one is the Quzan Village Secondary School in Bamyan Province.
It will educate some 500 boys and girls.
The next one is the Bamyam Central Girls High School. It will support
over 245 female students.
This next one is a building at Bagram Air Field, which has been
refurbished and turned into a new hospital that is capable of treating
some 40 patients each day.
This is a -- the next one is a desilting project in Herat. The Civil
Affairs teams recruited Afghans to clean out some 19 irrigation
canals, offering food for work. The project is already providing
benefits to the local farming community.
Next is the Bagram bridge -- before and after. Our folks employed
local Afghans to rebuild the bridge, and it now serves as a crucial
commercial link between Bagram and Kabul.
And finally, there are some pictures from last Friday's Little League
game in Urgun between the Afghan club and Shaheen, which is the Pashto
word for "eagles." They're using equipment donated by charities and by
the soldiers' families.
What a difference a year makes. The Afghan youngsters are back in
school, they're learning to play baseball instead of cowering in fear
and hiding from the Taliban's religious beliefs.
In all, the taxpayers of the United States have provided some $500
million, since October 2001, for relief and reconstruction activities
in Afghanistan, and more is on the way. Another $1.45 billion has been
authorized for this purpose over the next four years.
Coalition forces are making important contributions as well. De-
mining teams from Norway, Britain, Poland and Jordan have helped clear
land mines from hundreds of thousands of square meters of terrain.
Jordan built a hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif that's now treated over
100,000 patients. Spain and Korea have also built hospitals, and Japan
has pledged some $500 million to help rehabilitate Afghanistan. Other
countries are making important contributions as well.
So not only is the security situation improving in Afghanistan, but
the country is becoming more livable, a fact underscored by the flood
of refugees that are returning to the country. Each of those refugees
have made a judgment that conditions in Afghanistan today are better
than what existed before and better than where they've been living.
But more needs to be done. As I said the other day, we need to step up
to the challenge of bolstering the new central government by
delivering assistance to the Karzai team that has been promised and
which he desperately needs.
General Pace?
Pace: Thank you, sir. I was in Kabul about, oh, 10 days ago, and I was
really impressed with what I saw there. The streets are crowded with
pedestrians, folks on bicycles, traffic jams, numbers of vendors
selling their wares, businesses being reopened, shopkeepers putting
glass back in the windows -- all the activities that would indicate
that the folks in Afghanistan are beginning to invest in their own
future. And it's still a very dangerous place, but the signs are very
good.
With that, we'll take your questions.
Rumsfeld: Charlie.
Q: Mr. Secretary, there are reports that U.S. intelligence and the
U.S. military recently identified a group of non-Afghans in Northern
Iraq who were possibly producing chemical weapons and that the site --
the group, whatever -- was targeted by the U.S. military but that the
strike was called off apparently because they dispersed or something.
Could you fill us in on that or give us any details at all about that?
Rumsfeld: I have said for some time that there are al Qaeda in Iraq,
and there are. I have no comment that I care to make on the subject
that you raise, however.
Q: So you'd -- I mean, was there any -- you have no information on any
--
Rumsfeld: I didn't say I had no information. I said I had no comment
that I cared to make. And I don't.
Q: Mr. Secretary, you said there are al Qaeda in Iraq. These people
are --
Rumsfeld: Repeatedly. I wasn't saying these people -- I was -- I have
said repeatedly that there are al Qaeda in Iraq. There are. They have
left Afghanistan, they have left other locations, and they've landed
in a variety of countries, one of which is Iraq.
Q: When you say that in response to a question about this other group,
it leaves the impression that these people are affiliated with al
Qaeda or are operating with al Qaeda. Is that the impression you want
to leave?
Rumsfeld: I -- the impression I want to leave is that I have no
comment to make on the specific question that was raised by Charlie.
Q: Of the al Qaeda who are in Iraq, are they there under the auspices
of the current regime? Are they simply using it as a hiding place? Are
they being protected by Saddam Hussein?
Rumsfeld: Well, in a vicious, repressive dictatorship that has --
exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to
imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the
country.
Q: Mr. Secretary, you have often said -- my words, not yours -- that
the transformation of America's military is a linchpin of your
stewardship. And perhaps the latest attempt at transforming or the
latest example was a war game that just concluded last week -- three
weeks old -- during which a retired Marine Corps three-star general
claimed that the games were rigged, that he was not allowed to win
even if he could. And the bottom line being that if America goes into
any kind of conflict, Iraq or otherwise, with the lessons ostensibly
learned from this war game, we would be in error, and it would be a
disaster. Can I get your comment, and maybe, General Pace's?
Rumsfeld: Why not get the comment of an active-duty Marine, as opposed
to a retired Marine?
General Pace.
Pace: I'd be happy to.
First of all, I know the retired Marine you're talking about, and he's
a great patriot and a true gentleman and a very sincere, honest
individual.
I think just like in combat, when you're in an exercise or an
experiment, where you stand and what you see is different depending
upon where you happen to be. And there's a difference between
experimentation which takes a particular set of criteria and changes
one at a time to see what the results of that change are, and
exercises, which are primarily free play and have one person's mind
working against another.
In Millennium Challenge, you had several cases of experimentation
going on at the same time you had exercises going on. So, for example,
if what the opposition force commander wanted to do at a particular
time in the experiment was going to change the experiment to the point
where the data being collected was no longer going to be valid as an
experiment, then he was asked not to do that. One example was a time
when he wanted to use chemical weapons in the exercise against a
particular force. At the time he wanted to do that, the force in
question was, in fact, not a computer force but a force on the ground
that was actually going through the exercise. Now obviously, they
wouldn't have dropped chemicals on them, but in the scenario, it would
have been chemicals, and the whole timing and the expense of having
that unit do what it was doing for the sake of the experiment would
have been interrupted. So he was asked not to do that.
Now, as they sit back now in well-lit rooms like this and go through
line by line who said what at what time, they will discover whether or
not one person's perception is more accurate than another person's
perception. Regardless of whether or not one general or another
general has the best perception of what happened in the exercise, in
the experiment, it would be wrong to make absolute decisions or
declarations based on the outcome of this experiment. It is an
experiment. It is designed to help quantify where we are and where we
might be able to go, and then to experiment again.
Rumsfeld: I might just clarify one thing, lest somebody walk out with
a misunderstanding. When General Pace said that he requested the right
to use -- the opportunity to use chemical weapons, it should be made
very clear that this was not a U.S. force being exercised. He was
representing the opposition forces. The United States does not use or
have chemical weapons.
Q: (Inaudible) -- not General Pace --
Rumsfeld: Pardon me? General -- what?
Q: No, he was referring to General Van Riper who wanted to use the
chemical weapons --
Rumsfeld: That's right.
Pace: As the opposition -- the general acting as an opposition force.
Rumsfeld: It's important to understand that.
Pace: Thank you, sir.
Q: Follow-up, if I may, then. Very simply, based on what you're saying
-- it's a two-part follow-up. (Laughter.) From where you stand now,
both of you, both of you, you feel the games were not rigged --
Rumsfeld: Kind of taking over the whole briefing here! (Chuckles.)
Q: Just winding down, sir. And did America get its money's worth of
the $250-million-plus spent on these games?
Pace: What was the first question again? (Laughter.)
Q: Do you believe, from what you know now, that it was not rigged?
Pace: I actually believe that it was not rigged. If some people in a
particular part of the experiment felt like their life was being
controlled more than they would like it to be, that wouldn't surprise
me. That happens in every exercise because somebody has to be the
object of the other person's experiment. So it wouldn't surprise me if
some people felt that way. But en masse, the totality of what was
being done in Millennium Challenge, the benefit of that is going to be
analyzed and reanalyzed over the next several months for the next
experiment.
So yes, the money was well spent, and I'm sure we'll learn lessons
that will make it better spent next time.
Q: Mr. Secretary, tomorrow you're going to be visiting with President
Bush. I am not asking you to provide what guidance you're going to
give, but could you just give an overview of how important the meeting
might be, what you might be discussing, what are the issues that
you'll be discussing, such as missile defense, also whether you'll be
talking about cruise missiles, budget? Could you give an outline of
it?
Rumsfeld: Sure. What I do is I meet with the president, generally with
General Myers or General Pace, and occasionally with one or two other
people, on a regular basis. And it happens that he's physically in
Crawford instead of Washington. The business of the government goes
on. And we're going to be down there and spend a good portion of the
day.
One of the topics -- General Kadish is going with us, and one of the
topics is missile defense, where we've reached a point in the
evolution of the development of that program that it's appropriate to
bring the president up to date and to give him an opportunity to hear
General Kadish and J.D. Crouch, who works on it from the civilian
side, and give any guidance or direction he may care to give after
learning how the program has developed to this point.
A second thing we're going to be briefing him on, and discussing with
him, very much as we did last year, is where we are having come out of
the Quadrennial Defense Review last year, into the budget of this year
to the Defense Planning Guidance of this year, and beginning to build
the budget for the coming period. We will be walking him through the
number of studies that are currently underway and are being worked on
diligently here in the department and visiting with him about some of
the major program issues that the department is discussing and the
services and the CINCs are meeting with Secretary Wolfowitz about --
on a fairly regular basis.
Q: Would you be discussing your latest thoughts about cruise missiles?
And what is your latest thought about cruise missiles?
Rumsfeld: We have no plan to discuss cruise missiles that I can
recall.
Q: But what are your latest thoughts on that -- on the danger of --
Rumsfeld: Well, I have said for a year and a half-plus that I think
that the United States of America has to be attentive to the
traditional capabilities that can exist in the world, whether it's
armies, navies or air forces; whether it's conventional or -- weapons
of various types.
I've also said that I think we need to be sensitive and capable of
deterring and defending against or dealing with a host of
non-symmetrical or asymmetrical capabilities, including cruise
missiles, ballistic missiles, terrorism, cyberattacks, ways that
countries can develop capabilities a much -- in a much cheaper and
less expensive way that having to develop an army or a navy or an air
force. And I said that in my confirmation hearings. I have said it
every month since. I believe it.
This department is attentive to that problem, and those are things
we're working on. And certainly, cruise missiles, given their
proliferation around the world, their versatility -- they can be
launched from land, sea or air. They have versatility in terms of the
warheads they can take. They can take a conventional warhead or a
nuclear warhead, a chemical or a biological warhead. They're highly
accurate. And they can, with minor adaptations, achieve considerable
range. So yes, we do worry about cruise missiles, as we do ballistic
missiles, terrorism and cyberattacks and any way that another entity
or -- state or a non-state entity can attack the United States or our
friends or allies.
Q: Mr. Secretary?
Rumsfeld: John.
Q: Mr. Secretary, it seems with each passing week, more allies are
expressing concern about the apparent direction the United States is
headed with regard to Iraq. Do you feel, as you ponder your options on
Iraq and other countries that may be threatening to the United States,
that this growing list of friends of the United States that are
expressing concern -- does that alter, affect your thinking? Or is it
the threat that you focus on that drives you down that path to, I
gather from what other people in the administration say -- that that
is what you have to focus on, not voices of dissent that are being
raised by traditional American friends? Help us understand your
thinking.
Rumsfeld: Well, of course, I think the first thing to say is, my
thinking is probably not particularly relevant, or certainly not
determinative. The president and the society and the Congress and
other countries have to wrestle with these issues and come to grips
with how they want to deal with them.
I, as a student of history -- we all know that in a number of periods
of history, there have been -- there's been almost unanimity in a
certain position and it's proved to be wrong. So the fact that voices
can cluster in a certain way does not mean that that is necessarily
the wise course or the prudent course.
Second, I think you'll find if you look below the surface, that an
awful lot of the voices one hears get somewhat louder during election
periods and then seem to be less noticeable after elections are over.
And there are always elections taking place around the world.
Third, I don't know that I would agree with you, necessarily, that
there is a notable accumulation of opposition. I think that there are
properly people in our country and people in the world looking at the
circumstance that our world is in and expressing their concerns about
it, and people fall on one side of the spectrum or another side of the
spectrum or all across the range of the spectrum. And I think that's
understandable because if these things were easy, there would be no
debate. People would be out doing what people do in August when
they're not sitting in the Pentagon press room. But because they are
important issues, it's not surprising that they're discussing them and
thinking about them.
Q: Do you feel as your --
Rumsfeld: And I respect that.
Q: Do you feel as your case, the president's case, is laid out on
these issues, that -- certainly you hope, but do you believe that
there will be a swing more in the direction of the United States than
there currently is now on this issue?
Rumsfeld: I have no idea what the president will ultimately decide, or
when, or if. Clearly, in any endeavor, one would prefer to have near
acclamation and support. Life is not like that, generally. We find
that leaders have to make decisions that may be close calls. And
that's what they do. And sometimes they -- they find that when the
decision's ultimately made -- that the tone and the tempo changes
dramatically. And --
Q: In terms of support.
Rumsfeld: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Q: Mr. Secretary, in regard to Iraq and al Qaeda: You said --
Rumsfeld: I was trying to talk about Afghanistan.
Q: I know. You said you --
Rumsfeld: It seems like anything that -- I really do think that it's a
mistake for the press and the media to focus excessively on this one
subject and particularize everything to it. I find that the debate and
the discussion, the national dialogue, the international dialogue is a
little out of balance. I don't know what one can do about that, except
that I've found that from time to time, I'll give an interview and
never mention the word Iraq, and I find that the whole interview is
cast around Iraq. And --
Q: But sir, the administration, itself, put Iraq on a front burner and
turned up the heat. And now you're asking --
Q: The president talks about it every day.
Rumsfeld: That's fine. He did give a speech on the "axis of evil." I
think it was a good speech. I think it'll prove to have had a
beneficial effect for the people in all three of those countries when
we look back a decade from now.
Q: Actually --
Rumsfeld: Excuse me. You have a question. I apologize.
Q: Actually, I was going to follow up on something you said earlier --
that --
Rumsfeld: On Afghanistan -- oh -- (laughter).
Q: -- al Qaeda is in Iraq and that you find it hard to imagine that
the government of Iraq wouldn't know what's going on inside its own
country. But is there evidence -- what kind of evidence is there that
the government of Iraq is any way hosting, supporting, sponsoring al
Qaeda or any other terrorists inside Iraq?
Rumsfeld: Well, I suppose that at some moment, it may make sense to
discuss that publicly. It doesn't today. But what I have said is a
fact -- that there are al Qaeda in a number of locations in Iraq. And
the suggestion that those people who are so attentive in denying human
rights to their population aren't aware of where these folks are or
what they're doing is ludicrous.
Yes.
Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to get back to Ivan's question a moment
ago, concerning Millennium Challenge. General Van Riper, who was in
charge of the opposition force, is, I think, one of the most
experienced and respected war-game players in the United States
military. And the report is that he was so disturbed about the
situation that he resigned midway through the exercise. I would think
that that would be something that you folks would want to discuss with
him personally. Have either of you talked with him about that? And how
are you going to pursue this allegation?
Pace: Actually, I have talked with General Van Riper. He did not
resign. He stayed through the end of the exercise. In fact, at the end
of the exercise, he submitted a 21-page classified document to General
Kernan, the exercise director.
Rumsfeld: That will be public in about five minutes. (Laughter.) You
just put a big bull's eye on that piece of --
Pace: But the fact of the matter is that he has in fact participated
all the way through. And again, when you try to have a free-play
exercise that has free will versus free will going on at the same time
that you have an experiment going on, something has to give
occasionally. And I have not seen the report. I'm sure there's going
to be a lot of analysis done. But it is reasonable that reasonable men
looking at the same criteria or same data from a different viewpoint
could come up with, initially, a different conclusion. And they're
going to take this data -- "they" being Joint Forces Command, who
conducted the experiment and the exercise, and they will digest it all
to include General Van Riper's, I'm sure, very reasoned and very well
thought-out recommendations. And they'll make adjustments for the next
one.
Q: Mr. Secretary, Afghanistan question. There are some disturbing
reports out of Afghanistan that the Afghan government is releasing
potential people who might be members of al Qaeda or Taliban and that
they might -- and that the U.S. is not having access to these people.
The reports are quoting Afghan government officials to this effect. Do
you have any information on that?
Rumsfeld: No. I heard those reports this morning, and we've got people
looking into it. I'm not aware that that's the case.
Yes?
Q: I've got two questions, one for each of you, if that's all right.
On the first one, General Pace, regarding the Millennium Challenge,
this is just what I want to make sure I understand. It's my
understanding that before the Millennium Challenge began it was
described as you said, "free play" -- an opportunity to test out all
these theories and also technologies, and the good guys might win,
they might lose.
I actually saw some of the game. I actually saw an engagement in which
several of these new Striker vehicles were ambushed and destroyed. A
decision was made by the controllers at that time that most of the
vehicles that were destroyed would be brought back to life and allowed
to continue the game. There have since been some Army officials who
have said privately that that sort of decision was made in advance,
that a number of decisions were made in advance to ensure that one
side would win.
So my question to you is, is that true or am I missing something?
Pace: I don't know what you're missing. I don't know what you're
referring to "is that true?" I will simply tell you that when you lay
out an exercise where you've got 13,000 participants across the scope
of the United States from multiple locations, some doing it by
computer, some actually getting on airplanes and flying to the
location, that you have a scenario that you have lined up and that you
try to have unfold according to a time line that allows you to observe
it, to learn lessons and to control the environment.
It is absolutely routine, when a force goes in, in an exercise and it
gets destroyed, whether it's the enemy force or the friendly force, to
reconstitute that force so that you can go on to the next part of your
experiment. So the fact that something was killed and then brought
back to life and continued to play is the way we, in fact, use our
forces. Otherwise, you'd pay x thousand dollars to get PFC Pace out
into the desert, you kill me in the first day, and I sit there for the
next 13 days doing nothing; or you put me back to life and you get 13
more days worth of experiment out of me, which is the better way to do
it.
So we're going to find out through the analysis of the exercise what
went right and what didn't. But you should not read into the fact that
we have done what we always do, which is lay out a scenario and then,
when things start to unfold, the scenario is impacted by free will,
but it's also controlled to get certain things experimented.
Q: Secretary Rumsfeld, I have to bring up Iraq again. How do you
personally feel when you hear the German chancellor last year saying
unlimited solidarity with the United States, and then just a couple of
weeks ago saying that military intervention in Iraq is an unnecessary
adventure and Germany won't support it?
Rumsfeld: Oh, I haven't read the full text of his remarks, I'm afraid,
so I'd be disinclined to comment on it.
Yes?
Q: Sir, the transformation portion of the report that you recently
submitted to the president indicated that you're still committed to
finding the funds to modernize and transform the force, particularly
--
Rumsfeld: I don't know what report you're talking about.
Q: The Defense Department's annual report to the president.
Rumsfeld: Oh, yes. Good.
Q: The sections of that report that deal with transformation indicate
your continued commitment to it. My question is, are you finding it
increasingly difficult to find the funds and make the case for
bringing those funds up into the forefront of the budget-making
process in light of the expense that the government is having to
undergo with the war and other efforts associated with the war against
terrorism?
Rumsfeld: I guess the short answer is no. It's always hard to find the
funds to do all the things you'd like to do and that everyone in the
Department of Defense would like to do. But I don't think there's
anything -- I don't think there's anything about the war that is in
any way inhibiting transformation. I could make the case that there
are aspects of what's taking place in the conflict, in the global war
on terrorism and the distinctively new threats we're facing, which is
providing impetus to transformation.Quite the contrary.
Yes?
Q: Mr. Secretary, two quick questions, please.
Rumsfeld: One.
Q: If you have any comments on the NBC report -- (inaudible word) --
by Washington Post that last year, several members of al Qaeda related
to Pakistan's military government were arrested in Florida, and at
that time, in the original indictment, the name of Pakistan was
omitted due to some diplomatic reasons. But now the case is reopened
again, and --
Rumsfeld: I haven't seen the report. I can't comment. And I can't
believe that the press would omit some names for diplomatic reasons.
(Laughter.) That sounds just unbelievable to me.
Q: The report said the missiles and nuclear components were (swapped
?) -- for the al Qaedas in Pakistan and the military government. My
question is that some al Qaeda is now in Pakistan, which you believe
that there some there. But they have -- (inaudible) -- as far as their
nuclear and other missile -- (inaudible) --
Rumsfeld: I have no information on what you're referring to.
Q: (Inaudible) -- the United States -- (inaudible)?
Rumsfeld: I have no information on it.
Yes.
Q: Can I also follow up on the transformation issue? You've talked a
lot about cruise-missile defense, ballistic-missile defense, the
asymmetric threats. But on the other side of the equation, the strike
side: As these kind of targets pop up around the world and you think
about transformation and where you want to spend money, how do you
begin to solve the problem of striking these targets on a widening
basis, as it were -- on a no-notice, 24/7, around-the-world,
anywhere/anytime basis, so you can get to them in time?
Rumsfeld: We're spending a lot of time in the department looking at
ways that our current capabilities and our future capabilities can be
characterized as very rapidly deployable; lethal; involving a
relatively small footprint, compared to the past; capable of
sustainment; agility once in theater. And these are things that -- you
find those words reoccurring throughout much of what each of the
departments is doing -- each of the services. And certainly, you find
that that is what the CINCs are thinking about -- the combatant
commanders.
Q: Ideally, how quickly should the U.S. military be able, would you
hope, to strike a target?
Rumsfeld: Depends on the kind of a target, but if it's an army or a
navy or an air force, you have the advantage of a little time,
generally. If it's a target that conceivably could move in the next
three hours, obviously, your task is more difficult.
I think we'll take one last question.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Q: (Inaudible) -- embassy in Germany --
Rumsfeld: One -- did I miss the embassy in Germany?
Q: Yeah, what about Germany? The embassy in Germany has been taken
over by some Iraqi dissidents. Is --
Rumsfeld: Reportedly.
Q: Well, that's what the German police say. Is this part of the
strategy that the U.S. has been supporting with the different --
(laughter) --
Rumsfeld: John! Oh! I am embarrassed for you!
Q: This is a very serious question!
Rumsfeld: I am very embarrassed for you! The thought that the United
States would be engaged in something like that is so far afield that
you know that, I know that, everyone here knows that. The answer is
no. Obviously we don't know what's taking place there any more than
you do in your question and -- (laughter). Just for fun!
Q: Yeah, that's fun.
Rumsfeld: Yeah! (Laughs.)
And assuming that roughly what's being reported is roughly right,
needless to say, that's not the best way to approach things, and of
that you can be sure.
Last question.
Q: You've talked on a couple of occasions on philosophically perhaps
the need to preemptively strike a nation -- not necessarily Iraq, just
somewhere. And I'm wondering if you have a litmus test or a set of
conditions that you would need to see in order to make the call for a
preemptive strike? What has to be in place? Is it a nuke? Is it
complicity with al Qaeda? Have you considered any of those things?
Rumsfeld: I have considered a lot of those things. And the problem is,
if I answer your question, someone's going to think I'm talking about
Iraq.
Q: Let's say you're definitely not talking about Iraq. (Laughter.)
Rumsfeld: We'll go to Dick Myers' "the moon." (Laughter.) Remember?
Were you here for that when he -- theoretically, the --
Q: What makes a preemptive strike legal under international law, in
your eyes?
Rumsfeld: Well, I'm not a lawyer, Pam. You know that. Don't give me
that --
Q: Okay, skip the international law part. What makes a preemptive
strike okay, acceptable?
Rumsfeld: Well, I would make the case that there are a whole series of
things that ought to be looked at, and that there isn't a single one
that's determinative, and that what one would have to do is to
evaluate those and weigh them.
And the construct I would suggest would be what are the benefits --
what are the advantages and disadvantages of not acting? And of
course, the advantage of not acting against the moon would be that no
one could say that you acted; they would say, "Isn't that good, you
didn't do anything against the moon." The other side of the coin, of
not acting against the moon in the event that the moon posed a serious
threat, would be that you'd then suffered a serious loss and you're
sorry after that's over. And in weighing the things, you have to make
a judgment; net, do you think that you're acting most responsibly by
avoiding the threat that could be characterized -- X numbers of people
dying, innocent people -- and it's that kind of an evaluation one
would have to make.
Q: Is there some way of judging what the likelihood of a tragic event
happening if you didn't take a preemptive strike? I mean, does it have
to be 50 percent possibility or 25 percent possibility? What's that
algebra?
Rumsfeld: Well, if you think about it, think of the people today who
are still writing books about Pearl Harbor, and what did you know and
when did you know it, and what might have been done to not have that
happen, and so forth. There would be a lot more people writing books
and analyzing that question if the attack on Pearl Harbor had been
with a weapon of mass destruction as opposed to conventional weapons,
which killed several thousand people.
People are still trying to connect the dots and say what did people
know and what might have been done with respect to September 11th.
There are committees up on the Hill looking into that and asking those
questions. The problem is that if you think back to the beginnings of
World War II, where millions and millions, tens of millions of people
were killed, historians go back and look at that and ask themselves
the question: Isn't it possible that if countries had behaved
marginally differently during that period, notwithstanding the fact
that the chorus of peace in our time and "don't do anything that would
be unseemly" was very strong, and it was near unanimous. There were
only a few lone voices suggesting that Hitler might ought to have been
stopped earlier.
Q: Do you see parallels?
Rumsfeld: No. I'm taking Pearl Harbor, World War II in Europe --
what's another example? Well, I mentioned September 11th.
Q: How about Iraq? (Laughter.)
Q: How about the start of World War I, where actions were taken that
set events in train and somebody reacted and we wound up with what I
think a lot of historians think may have been an avoidable
catastrophe.
Rumsfeld: Mm-hm. The problem is, after a catastrophe, almost -- there
is always going to be a great deal of history written about how it
might have been avoided. And that's just the nature of human beings.
We do do that; we do go back and look. And of course, it's an awful
lot easier to go back and look at the past and analyze it than it is
to analyze the future and what might take place. And you're asking
questions that are difficult, and they're important, and they merit
the thought and the attention and the discussion of the American
people and the people in the world.
Thank you very much.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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