05 August 2003
Rumsfeld Says Iraqis Growing More Confident About Country's Future
Defense Department Report, August 5: Iraq, Liberia, Myers' trip, U.S. force strength, pneumonia
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that following the deaths last month of Uday and Qusay Hussein, "confidence is growing in Iraq that the Ba'athists will not be returning to power," and more Iraqis are coming forward with information to help the coalition get the country back on a path of stability and self-government.
Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon August 5, Rumsfeld said the United States recently approved a $30 million award to the person who provided the whereabouts of Uday and Qusay Hussein.
As more Iraqis step forward with information and assistance, he said, coalition forces have conducted scores of raids against remnants of the former regime and have captured "literally many hundreds of individuals," including 38 of the top 55 "most wanted." The forces also have confiscated millions of dollars and seized thousands of mortar rounds, hundreds of small arms, plus heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, plastic explosives, documents and ammunition, he said.
Rumsfeld pointed to success on the civil side as well, including the opening of universities and hospitals, the return of Iraq to the world oil market, the hiring of Iraqi police, and the formation of an Iraqi army.
"Most important, of course," he said, "is the formation of the Iraq Governing Council," which he described as "very likely the most representative body that Iraq has ever had."
Success will take time and require patience, the secretary said, and there will continue to be attacks. But "each of these successes ... is putting pressure on those who seek to disrupt Iraq's transition from tyranny to a free and civil society."
Rumsfeld told a questioner that the Iraq Survey Group, which is searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has been to a number of so-called suspect sites, and they will assess their findings and make a judgment about when to discuss them publicly.
He said he was amused to see photographs of Russian jet aircraft that were buried under ground in an area where coalition forces had been operating for weeks without knowing they were there.
"[U]ntil you find somebody who tells you where to look, or until nature clears some sand away and exposes something over time, we're simply not going to know," he said. "But, as we all know, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Asked about foreign fighters in Iraq, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed with Rumsfeld, said the focus remains on the mid-level Ba'athists because "they are the ones that are opposing ... success in that country right now." But he said the potential remains for continued infiltration of foreign fighters into the country, and there is also a threat from Ansar al-Islam, some of whose members "have been captured ... and are being interrogated." Ansar al-Islam is an Iraqi terrorist group that has been linked to al Qaeda.
Myers also discussed his recent trip to Iraq, Qatar, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Oman. In general, he said, "the biggest shortcoming from Iraq to Afghanistan is not the accomplishment of the mission as much as it is getting the word out about the successes we're achieving every day."
Asked about the situation in Liberia and President Charles Taylor's statement that he does not plan to leave the country unless international charges against him are dropped, Rumsfeld said that "everyone except that individual seemed to feel it would be best for the country if he would leave ... at the appropriate moment. Whether he will or not, time will tell. I've heard of nothing that suggests that the charges against him are likely to be dropped."
He said President Bush has expressed his concern about the humanitarian situation in Liberia and has encouraged African countries, including the ECOWAS nations, "to step forward, as they are now doing." Rumsfeld said the president "has from the beginning said that any role for the United States would be to assist them and not replace them." He said the U.S. has been helping the African forces to assess their military capabilities and their equipment and transportation circumstances, and would be in communication with the leaders of the ECOWAS forces, "but that's the sum total of the policy at the moment."
Asked about claims that the U.S. military needs to increase the size of its forces, Rumsfeld said "We're analyzing precisely what we believe the situation to be" and "to the extent we need more or less end strength, obviously, we would ask Congress for it."
He said that several things are available to reduce the stress on the force, including a more efficient deployment and redeployment process, rebalancing the reserve component with the active force component, use of contractors, using larger numbers of coalition forces, continuing the drawdown in Bosnia and Kosovo, and changing the personnel system to facilitate using civil service personnel in positions that don't require military personnel.
Rumsfeld said his goal is to ensure "that we're respectful of the taxpayers' dollars" and that "we make the most effective use of the force. And that's what we're in the process of doing."
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT STUDYING PNEUMONIA CASES AMONG AMERICANS IN IRAQ
In a separate briefing held earlier in the day to discuss the recent cases of pneumonia among service members deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations, David Tornberg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy, and Colonel Robert DeFraites, chief of preventive medicine in the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, said that the number of pneumonia cases -- about a hundred -- is about the amount that one might expect in the population of troops currently deployed. They said background information and experience indicates that between 400 and 500 cases of pneumonia occur every year in the Army worldwide
The officials added that the Army Surgeon General has chartered two epidemiological consultation teams to study the situation and ensure that everything possible is done to avoid new cases while providing the best of care to those who have become ill. They also said that there is no evidence of anthrax, smallpox or any other biological agent having been used in the regions where pneumonia has been found, and indicated that the high concentrations of dust in the area may have been a factor.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=August&x=20030805183603yakcm0.5333673&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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