Rumsfeld Rejects Notion that Iraq War Is a Quagmire - Reuters
From the Reuters report on the Senate Armed Services Hearing this morning:
"This war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged," Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Rumsfeld. "And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire."
"Our troops are dying. And there really is no end in sight. And the American people, I believe, deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our fighting forces have made, and they deserve the real facts. And I regret to say that I don't believe that you have provided either," Kennedy added.
Kennedy asked Rumsfeld: "Isn't it time for you to resign?"
Rumsfeld noted he twice offered his resignation to President Bush last year during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, and that Bush declined to accept it. "That's his call," Rumsfeld added.
Join Senator Kennedy in calling on Secretary Rumsfeld to Resign (Again)!
The Senator highlighted the litany of mistakes made in Iraq under Rumsfeld's command, and asked the million dollar question: Isn't it time Secretary Rumsfeld resigned? A Reuters report on their exchange is below; also included are Senator Kennedy's opening statement, the Secretary's comments as prepared for delivery, how he actually delivered them, a fact sheet on the mistakes that have taken place on his watch, and link to the transcript of one of his previous visits to the committee in 2002, when he discussed the Administration's efforts to avoid war and why Iraq was so dangerous. During that testimony, Secretary Rumsfeld offered some advice on how we should shape our opinion of Iraq: "I suggest we watch what they do, not what they say" - perhaps the same caution applies to shaping our opinions of the Bush Administration?
Transcript of the exchange between Senator Kennedy and Secretary Rumsfeld:
SEN. TED KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
I want to thank General Casey, and General Myers, General Abizaid, Secretary
Rumsfeld for their service to their country.
During the course of their presentations, we hear the words dedication, the
commitment, sacrifice and courage of our Armed Forces. And that is something
that all of us admire, respect and commend for those men and women in the
regular forces, the Reserve and the Guard. And quite frankly, it puts an
additional burden, I think, on all of us to make sure that we're going to
get it right over in Iraq. Because the kinds of sacrifice that all of you
have talked about American servicemen and women, and in terms of the Iraqis
as well, mean that we have a real responsibility to get it correct, and that
comes to the policymakers, and moves out of those that are out there, going
on patrols every day and every night and doing the job that they feel is
important, and is important in terms of the United States. So it's the
policy. It's the policymakers.
Which brings me, Mr. Secretary, to you. Secretary Rumsfeld, as you know, we
are in serious trouble in Iraq, and this war has been consistently and
grossly mismanaged. And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire. Our
troops are dying. And there really is no end in sight. And the American
people, I believe, deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our
fighting forces are made, and they deserve the real facts. And I regret say
that I don't believe you have provided either.
You were wrong in September 2002 when you told the House Armed Services
Committee that knowing what we know about Iraq's history, no conclusion is
possible, except that they have and are escalating their WWD programs. And
you were wrong when you told this committee that no terrorist state poses a
greater threat or more immediate threat to the security of our people than
the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
When General Shinseki estimated that we'd need several hundred thousand
soldiers, you scoffed and said the idea that it would take several hundred
U.S. forces is far from the mark. And when the massive looting occurred
after Baghdad fell because we didn't have enough troops for security, you
callously said, stuff happens. You wrongly insisted after Saddam fell that
there was no guerrilla war, even though our soldiers continued to be killed.
In June 2003, you said, the reason I don't use the phrase guerrilla war is
because there isn't one. You wrongly called the insurgents dead-enders, but
they are killing Americans, almost three a day, and Iraqis with alarming
frequency and intensity. You wrongly sent our service members into battle
without the proper armor. When asked by a soldier about inadequate
equipment, you said you go to war with the armor you have. They're not the
armor you might want or wish to have at a later time.
You exaggerated our success, in training capable Iraqi security forces in
February 2004. You told this committee, we have accelerated the training of
Iraqi security forces, now more than 200,000. That's in February of this
year. In fact, we have far fewer actually capable of fighting then, and far
fewer that are capable even now.
So you basically have mismanaged the car and created an impossible situation
for military recruiters and put our forces and national security in danger.
Our troops deserve better, Mr. Secretary. I think the American people
deserve better. They deserve competency, and they deserve the facts.
In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the secretary of
defense?
RUMSFELD: Well, that is quite a statement. First let me say that there isn't
a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that
there's no end in sight. The presentations today have been very clear.
They've been very forthright.
The suggestion by you that people, me or others, are painting a rosy picture
is false. There has been balance in my remarks. It's always possible for you
to select out a word or two and cite it and suggest that that was the thrust
of it, but the fact is, from the beginning of this, we have recognized that
this is a tough business. It is difficult, that it is dangerous, and that it
is not predictable.
Third, the issue of a guerrilla war, I mean, my goodness, I don't think it's
a guerrilla war. You may think so. I don't know if anyone at this table
thinks so. It's an insurgency. And it's a semantic issue. But listing that
as some sort of crime, or wrongdoing or misleading, it seems to me is a
world-class stretch.
I did call them dead-enders. I don't know what else you'd call a suicide
bomber. What is a person who straps a vest on themselves, walks into a
dining hall, kills themselves and kills innocent Iraqi people or innocent
coalition soldiers? It seems to me that that's a perfectly appropriate
comment.
With respect to the Iraqi security forces, there's been a great deal of
misinformation that's been thrown around in this country. You know, and we
have told this committee on repeated occasions, that in the early periods,
they included the site protection people, so the numbers were higher by some
80,000. We've said that. It's in the material that's presented to your
committee every week or two. There's an asterisk in there, a footnote. It
says it. We've repeated it. And to then pull that number out and say it's
less today, it seems to me is misleading.
I will say that the idea that what's happening over there is a quagmire is
so fundamentally inconsistent with the facts, the reality is that they are
making political progress without question. The reality is that the American
forces that are training, and equipping and mentoring the Iraqi security
forces are doing a darn good job, and the number has been going up steadily
and consistently, and I'd be happy to have General Abizaid or General Casey
mention the effective work they're doing. To denigrate them and to suggest
that they're not capable, to be sure they're not like the U.S. forces.
They're never going to be like U.S. forces. There isn't an Army, or a Navy
or an Air Force on the face of the earth that's comparable to the United
States military, but that doesn't mean that they aren't capable of doing
that which needs to be done.
To talk about the total number of 168,500 and suggest that because they all
can't be deployed across the country at any given moment with their own
lift, and their own intelligence and their own combat support, it seems to
me misunderstands the situation. As you know, in the material we give you, a
large number of them are police. They're not supposed to deploy any place.
Policemen in Washington D.C. Don't get in airplanes and fly to California.
These people are trained to be border guards. They don't deploy. They don't
need to deploy. They go out to the border and they guard the border. They
are policemen. They go to a city and they do their police work. There's a
full range of security forces, site protection people. They go out to an oil
well, and they sit there and guard the oil well.
There are a limited number of military people and special police battalions
that have the responsibility of counterinsurgency, and they do an
increasingly good job. So I think I must say that I think that the comments
you made are certainly yours to make, and I don't agree with them.
KENNEDY: Well, my time is just expired, but Mr. Secretary, I'm talking about
the misjudgments and the mistakes that have made the series which I
mentioned, the disarming of the Iraqi army, those were judgments that were made, and there have been a series of gross errors and mistakes. Those are on your watch. Those are on your watch. Isn't it time for you to resign?
RUMSFELD: Senator, I've offered my resignation to the president twice, and he's decided that he would prefer that he not accept it. And that's his
call.
KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
GEN. GEORGE CASEY, CMDR., MULTINATIONAL FORCES IN IRAQ: Excuse me, Mr.
Chairman. As the commander in Iraq, I would like to put myself on the record, Senator Kennedy, as saying that I also agree with the secretary, that to represent the situation in Iraq as a quagmire is a misrepresentation of the facts. And I thought I was fairly clear when I laid out in my testimony about what's going on in Iraq, that you have an insurgency with no vision, no base.
Rumsfeld Rejects Notion that Iraq War Is a Quagmire - Reuters
From the Reuters report on the Senate Armed Services Hearing this morning:
"This war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged," Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Rumsfeld. "And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire."
"Our troops are dying. And there really is no end in sight. And the American people, I believe, deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our fighting forces have made, and they deserve the real facts. And I regret to say that I don't believe that you have provided either," Kennedy added.
"Well, that is quite a statement," Rumsfeld, flanked by top U.S. commanders, responded. "First let me say that there isn't a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that there's no end in sight."
"The suggestion by you that people -- me or others -- are painting a rosy picture is false," Rumsfeld.
"The fact is from the beginning of this we have recognized that this is a tough business, that it is difficult, that it is dangerous, and that it is not predictable," Rumsfeld added.
Kennedy asked Rumsfeld: "Isn't it time for you to resign?"
Rumsfeld noted he twice offered his resignation to President Bush last year during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, and that Bush declined to accept it. "That's his call," Rumsfeld added.
Senator Kennedy's Opening Statement as Prepared for Delivery to the Armed Services Hearing on theRealities of War
Rumsfeld: Just Plain Wrong on Iraq
"I'm not here to recommend the use of force in Iraq or multilateral or unilateral, or to suggest that the president has made a decision beyond what he has told the United Nations and the Congressional leadership and indeed the American people. I am here to discuss Iraq, as requested by the committee and by the president, and to try to address a number of the questions that have come up during this national debate and public dialogue that's been taking place.
As we meet, chemists and biologists and nuclear scientists are toiling in weapons' labs in underground bunkers, working to give the world's most dangerous dictators weapons of unprecedented power and lethality. The threat posed by some of those regimes is real, it's dangerous and it's growing with each passing day."
"...We have not, we will not and we cannot know everything that is going on in the world. Over the years, despite our best efforts, intelligence has repeatedly underestimated weapons capabilities of a variety of important major countries. We've had numerous gaps of two, four, six, eight, in some cases double-digit years between when a country of real concern to us began a development program and when we finally found out about it, that many years later.
We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, they're pursuing nuclear weapons, that they've proven willingness to use those weapons, and that they have a proven aspiration to seize territory of their neighbors and to threaten their neighbors, and that they cooperate with terrorist networks and that they have a proven record of declared hostility and venomous rhetoric against the United States. Those threats should be clear to all."
"... The question comes down to this: How will the history of this era be recorded? When we look back on previous periods of our history, we see that there have been many books written about threats and attacks that were not anticipated: "At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor," "Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment," "Why England Slept." The list of such books is endless. And unfortunately, in the past year historians have already started to add to that body of literature, and there are books out on the September 11th attack and asking why they weren't prevented. Each is an attempt by the authors to connect the dots, to determine what happened and why it was not possible to figure out what was going to happen in the future.
Our job today -- the president's, the Congress and the United Nations, and indeed the free people of the world -- is to try to connect the dots before the fact."
-Secretary Rumsfeld, testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, September 19, 2002 on the threat Iraq posed, and how important it is for the U.S. to be forward-thinking in its foreign policy decisions. You can read the transcript in its entirety here.
Rumsfeld Testimony as Prepared for the Armed Services Hearing, June 23, 2005.
"In every war, there are individuals who commit wrongdoing. And there are mistakes, setbacks, and hardships. "
Secretary Rumsfeld's Testimony as Delivered to the Armed Services Hearing, June 23, 2005
"In every war, there are individuals who commit wrongdoing, and there are setbacks and there are hardships."
Join Senator Kennedy in calling on Secretary Rumsfeld to Resign (Again)!