Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Monday, June 30, 2003 - 1:25 p.m. EDT
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Rumsfeld: Good afternoon. This Friday Americans will mark the 227th anniversary of our country's independence. We do so in a time of war, when our forces are engaged across the globe, defending our people against adversaries who have a desire to kill innocent men, women and children, and disrupt our way of life. And as we stop to give thanks for our freedom, we also give thanks for those who make our freedom possible: the men and women of our armed forces.
This year in Iraq, Americans saw our forces in action, but it important to remember that Operation Iraqi Freedom was just one battle in a difficult and dangerous war that is still going on: the global war on terror. Today and every day, brave men and women are fighting that war, risking their lives to defend our people from terrorism. On July 4th, a grateful nation stops to thank them all.
As we celebrate our liberty, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the challenges that our country faced in its early years. It was a period of chaos and confusion. Our revolution was followed by a serious commercial depression. Britain's colonial ports were -- in the West Indies were closed to ships flying the American flag. There was rampant inflation and no stable currency.
Discontent led to uprisings, such as the Shays Rebellion, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. In 1783 demobilized soldiers from the Continental Army surrounded the statehouse in Philadelphia, demanding back pay. Congress fled for more than six months, meeting in Princeton, Trenton and finally Annapolis, to avoid angry mobs.
Our first attempt at governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed, in a sense. It took eight years before the Founders finally adopted our Constitution and inaugurated our first president.
That history is worth remembering as we consider the difficulties that the Afghans and the Iraqis face today. The transition to democracy is never easy. Coalition forces drove Iraq's terrorist leaders from power, but unlike traditional adversaries that we've faced in wars past, who sign a surrender document, hand over their weapons, the remnants of the Ba'ath regime and the Fedayeen death squads faded into the population and have reverted to a terrorist network. We are dealing with those remnants in a forceful fashion, just as we have had to deal with the remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and tribal areas near Pakistan.
Those battles will go on for some time. The liberation of Iraq is complete; the regime has been removed from power and will not be permitted to return. But our war with terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe continues. It will not be over any time soon. As Jefferson taught us two centuries ago, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
General Myers.
Myers: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I'd like to begin with extending my condolences to the families of those soldiers who were killed and wounded over the weekend in Iraq. As the nation stops this weekend for backyard festivities, we must remember those Americans who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, as well as those forces who are deployed around the globe.
Our forces continue to engage in raids to root out elements that are endangering our troops and trying to prevent Iraq from staying on its path to becoming a free society. We completed Operation Desert Scorpion over the weekend, which resulted in over thirteen hundred individuals being detained, we confiscated 500 AK-47s, over 200 hand grenades, and over a thousand -- I'm sorry, one hundred rocket-propelled grenades. U.S. forces have also recovered over $9 million U.S. and 1.5 billion in Iraqi dinars.
Yesterday we commenced Operation Sidewinder. The purpose of Sidewinder is to establish a secure and stable environment within the area of operations by clearing, destroying or seizing paramilitary forces, Ba'ath loyalists and weapons and ammo caches. Elements of the 4th Infantry Division have already conducted 27 raids associated with Operation Sidewinder since it began on Sunday, and, as a result of those raids, 61 individuals have been detained and several machine guns and assorted other ammunition confiscated.
Finally, as we move toward the 4th of July holiday, I would like to acknowledge the many communities around the country who are participating and hosting Tribute to Freedom events. These events symbolize the unification of our communities and our military and serve to recognize our uniformed men and women who have served and continue to serve in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and around the world. And they do that so we may enjoy the freedom of our independence.
It's also an opportunity to thank all Americans for their unwavering support of our troops.
And with that, we'll take your questions.
Q: Mr. Secretary, General, what evidence do you have that the recent raids staged by U.S. forces have succeeded in knocking out the Iraqis responsible for recent attacks on U.S. and British forces? And what concern do you have that the U.S. show of force in these raids could actually antagonize ordinary Iraqis, perhaps increasing unrest, rather than the intended consequences of doing it?
Rumsfeld: Well, clearly, you can't have evidence that your raids will stop future attacks. Indeed, I just said quite to the contrary. We expect various types of attacks to continue in both countries.
If you think of what exists in Iraq, for example, you have looters who take advantage of opportunities that exist from time to time, just as they do in other countries around the world, when there's an earthquake or a sporting event or something. You have criminals that were let out of prison; the guess is tens of thousands of the Iraqi prisoners were put out on the street. You have the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime: the Ba'athists, the Fedayeen Saddam, some army people, some Special Republican Guard people, some SSO (Special Security Organization) people. You have the -- if you'll recall, busloads of people came in from other countries, Syrians and -- over the Syrian border. We stopped some buses, others got in. And we are -- when we scoop up people in these raids, we find people from other nations who came there to oppose the regime -- correction, to oppose to the coalition. There are clearly people that are being influenced by Iran.
And if you take that full spectrum of people that are there to oppose the coalition and, frankly, the Iraqi people, who are -- the damage that's being done for the most part is to the infrastructure, and which is harmful to the Iraqi people.
So what one has to do is to keep putting pressure on all of those categories and know that no one raid or five raids is going to deal with the entire problem. The problem's going to be dealt with over time as the Iraqis assume more and more responsibility for their own country and are able to have an Iraqi face on the activities that are taking place in that country, which are for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Q: May I do a follow-up, please, Mr. Secretary?
Myers: Let me just add something to that, and that is that the evidence in terms of what we're seeing and what we're being told by Ambassador Bremer and by folks in theater is that more and more Iraqis are helping the coalition find weapons caches and people that were regime officials that we want. And I think that's one measure of merit that we can look at that is a very positive trend.
Q: May I do a follow-up to all this, please, Mr. Secretary and General Myers? How important is it to find Saddam Hussein and his sons alive or dead? We're getting reports out of Baghdad that a lot of the anti-opposition to American forces and British forces is because of fear; some people think he will come back. And is part of Operation Sidewinder an effort to find them?
Rumsfeld: Well, as I have indicated, our first choice is to find all three of them. I think that the absence of closure is unhelpful in two respects. Number one, there are some who hope that they might come back, because they were privileged during the period they were there; they were part of the Ba'athist hierarchy. There are also those who are fearful that he'll come back or they'll come back. They're not going to come back, that's for sure. They may be alive, they may be dead. We may find them sooner or later. But the absence of closure has the effect I've described, which is unhelpful.
Q: But may I do a follow-up --
Rumsfeld: A follow-up on your own follow-up. I think -- (Inaudible.). (Laughter.)
Q: Mr. Secretary, could you provide additional details since we last talked to you about the June 18th episode near the Syrian border, in terms of what you know now about the role of the Syrians, and how they came to be involved and how many people were killed, that sort of thing?
Rumsfeld: I can try. I'm sure there are people that -- Larry can get precise details and Dick can calibrate me, but the five Syrians were wounded; they were treated; they're all back in Syria. There were something like 20 people captured, and some 17 were immediately released, and I don't know the disposition of the other two or three.
(To Gen. Myers.) Do you?
Myers: I do not. As of Friday, they were still in -- still being interrogated.
Rumsfeld: There's nothing anyone can add, I don't think, that would be helpful from our standpoint, beyond saying that we had good intelligence, and it indicated that there were people moving, during their curfew, close to the border in a convoy of SUVs (sport utility vehicles), and our forces went in and stopped them.
Q: Do the Syrians have any -- play a part in facilitating the movement of people back and forth?
Rumsfeld: I don't know that we've got perfect visibility into that question. We have things that would suggest that someone on the Syrian side was involved, but whether it was the Syrians, quote/unquote, as you put it -- meaning people connected the government, I take it --
Q: (Off mike.) -- I meant the --
Rumsfeld: Connected with the government, yeah. That I haven't got a definitive answer to. (Aside to Gen. Myers.) Do you?
Myers: No, I agree with that statement. |
