Through the memory hole with Rumsfeld

By Lee Russ

Monday, May 01, 2006 at 05:08 PM

Some stammering, stuttering performances are worth a calling to mind again after they fade from memory.  Witness this excerpt from the March 14, 2004 Face the Nation appearance by the one and only Donald Rumsfeld.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.

(Tom Friedman, NY Times columnist) Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the  nu'--this is you speaking--`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to
seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we will know. David Kay said we're about 85 percent there. I don't know if that's the right percentage. But the Iraqi Survey Group--we've got 1,200 people out there looking. It's a country the size of California. He could have hidden his--enough chemical or biol--enough biological weapons in the hole that--that we found Saddam Hussein in to kill tens of thousands of people. So--so it's not as though we have certainty today. But what--think what happened. There were 17 UN resolutions. There was unanimous agreement that he had filed a fraudulent declaration. The final opportunity was given with the last resolution, and he didn't take it. He chose war. He didn't do what Kazakhstan did. He didn't do what South Africa did. He didn't do what Ukraine did. He--he didn't say, `Come in and look and see what we have.' He was engaged in active deception. We'll ultimately know a great deal about what took place.

SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, David Kay--you mentioned David Kay--he said last week that the president should simply come clean with the American people. He said--he told The Guardian newspaper in--in England, `The president should say, "We were simply mistaken and we're determined to find out why,"' and he said, `Until  we say that, it's going to hurt American credibility and delay reforms in intelligence which simply need to be done.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I--I didn't see the full statement that he made, but I would say this about that. First of all, there are lessons being learned about intelligence and--and the Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence community have engaged in a lessons-learned process. And there isn't any delay as that sic--statement suggests in addressing those issues to the extent they're known at this point.

Second, David Kay, by his own testimony, indicated that he thought we know about 85 percent of what we'd know. That's a--an estimate. I--by his own testimony, it's an estimate. And we have imp--very talented people out there working very hard to learn whatever else there is to know. And I think it's perfectly proper to reserve final judgment until we've been able to go through that process, run down those leads and see what actually took place. If--if- -the--the president has said essentially what--what David Kay said, that--that, thus far, we know what's been delivered and what's been discussed publicly and we suspect there's more to be learned. And--and that's why we're spending so much time and effort interrogating people and--and there are millions of documents yet to reviewed, literally millions of documents.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about a criticism that's been leveled by the Military Officers Association of America--that's 300,000 retired and active duty officers--who say that your plan to increase the size of the Army by the policy they call stop-loss is simply a backdoor way to reinstitute the draft. They say that when you decided to increase the force levels up to, I think, 30,000--I may not be exactly right on that figure--that instead of doing that by recruiting more people, what you're doing are telling people who are already in the service that they're going to have to stay an extra amount of time, maybe as much as 16 months. And he--and what they say--this is their criticism--is that this is the most unfair kind of draft because what you're doing is drafting people who have already served the country. What is your response to that?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, obviously, they're not well informed. First of all, the...

SCHIEFFER: Well, they've listed it as their--one of their top legislative priorities is to get this changed this year.

Sec. RUMSFELD: The fact is they're not well-informed.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

Sec. RUMSFELD: The--the plan for the Army is not my plan for the Army. It's the Army's plan for the Army. And General Shoemaker and Les Brownly have put it forward. They've testified on it. And if--we have been increasing the size of the Army for close to two years. We have emergency power to do that. We've been doing that. The--the suggestions that the Army should be increased in size are--are basically coming from people who haven't been watching what's been taking place. It's been growing and it is still growing and it will grow more in the period ahead under General Shoemaker's plan. The...

SCHIEFFER: Well, you're not saying, sir, are you...

Sec. RUMSFELD: The--the--the--let me...

SCHIEFFER: ...that this is not what they're doing?

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I am saying that that's not what they're doing. I--I'm saying--I don't know the full statement that you're--you're referring to, but--but let me just tell you what's happening. I--rather than commenting on that, because I haven't read it or--or I'm not familiar with it, I'd rather say what is, in fact, happening. And what is  happening is the Army is going from something like 33 brigades up to 43 or 48 brigades over the next four years. We are rebalancing the Guard and Reserve with the active force because we inherited a--a badly imbalanced, unbalanced Army as between the skill sets and the active force and the Guard and Reserve. And the progress that General Shoemaker has been making is impressive. Second, the--the suggestion that--stop-loss has always been used, and it is not used excessively today. It--everyone bends over backwards to not have to use it. But--but...

SCHIEFFER: But you are using it now.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Just a minute, just a minute.

SCHIEFFER: OK.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Everyone--everyone in the service is there who's--is a volunteer. And the idea of equating that to cons--conscription or a draft is--is inaccurate and--and misses the point entirely. Everyone there is there as a volunteer.

SCHIEFFER: Yes, sir, but they volunteer for a certain period of time, and then when they're told...

Sec. RUMSFELD: They--they...

SCHIEFFER: ...as they're about to get out...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Bob...

SCHIEFFER: ...that they're going to have to stay longer...

Sec. RUMSFELD: ...Bob, you're wrong. They volunt...

SCHIEFFER: This is not my--this is not my thing.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well...

SCHIEFFER: This is what the Military Officers Association of America is saying.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I am telling you that the fact is that everyone serving on active duty is a volunteer and they volunteered knowing precisely what the rules were. And they've known that stop-loss has been a part of that policy or rule throughout a--a very long period of time.

SCHIEFFER: Do you know how long...

Sec. RUMSFELD: It is nothing new.

SCHIEFFER: ...how many people have been affected by stop-loss in the last couple of years?

Sec. RUMSFELD: We do. We do. I don't have it on the tip of my tongue, but that number...

SCHIEFFER: Would it be about 30,000?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Over time, for some period, like a day or a week or a month that someone may have served somewhat longer, their--that--that--that number might be right. I don't know. But when they join, they know that that could be the case. And--and they volunteer for that, and they understand that. And you have a willing majority of the people on s-- serving today are proud of their service, and--and they're anxious to be serving.

SCHIEFFER: OK. Let's go to Tom.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: Mr. Secretary, the Pentagon has asked the Justice Department to join the inquiry into allegations that Halliburton has been ripping off the American taxpayer in Iraq, overcharging for fuel. Do you regret bringing Halliburton in, given the former ties this vice president has had with this company, the controversy now that's been swirling around this?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, you say do you regret bringing in Halliburton? What happens is that you have a government and you have contracts and you then let the contracts under the existing rules. And the rules are that if there is an existing contract, occasionally they can be expanded to cover on--an emergency situation. In other instances, the contracts are competitively bid. And so it isn't a matter of do you regret letting someone in? I--if there was an existing contract, it--it can--and it's expanded, that's why it was written in a way it could be expanded. And if it's competitively bid and some company wins it, they win it.

Now wh--what--what we've seen is that almost anything involving that company, because of the vice president's former relationship with it, is--is big news. And so everyone looks at it and examines it under a microscope. And that's fine. In fact, there's so many auditors and-- and inspector generals out in Iraq examining every single contract that my--my impression is that--that there will be nothing that went wrong that will not be very well-known.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

Sec. RUMSFELD: And if something goes wrong, believe me, we will land all over them regardless of which company it is.

SCHIEFFER: At that point, we have to stop. Mr. Secretary, you're always a good advocate for your cause. Thank you so much for being with us.