RUMSFELD, CONT.
MR. RUSSERT: What about France and Germany?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Just a minute. Just a minute—in assisting them to provide stabilization forces. Now, what is NATO? NATO is 19 countries, plus going up to 26 soon. At the moment, there is something in excess of 15 of those 19 to 26 that are already assisting in Iraq. When someone says, “Ask NATO to do it,” the implication is NATO has a standing force and they can either decide formally to be requested, either send them in or not send them in. That’s not the case. NATO doesn’t have that type of a standing capability. What NATO has is a number of countries that decide to do something, and they’re just agreeing now to take over the international security assistance force in Afghanistan.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: That is a big thing for them.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you want France...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: And they’re doing that.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you want France and Germany?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I said yes. I’ve answered that question 15 times. And...
MR. RUSSERT: Well, in a Senate hearing, will they?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I don’t know. It’s up to France and Germany. Germany’s just now taking over the ISAF in Afghanistan...
MR. RUSSERT: Afghanistan.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: ...and that’s a big thing for them, with the Dutch. And they’ve agreed to stay on an additional period and transition to a NATO lead in Afghanistan. But that idea that the United States is not asking other countries to help or not asking for U.N. assistance—U.N. has a man, Mr. Demello, on the ground in Iraq, working on these problems. They have all kinds of humanitarian assistance that they’re participating in.
MR. RUSSERT: But you don’t want to have the U.N. take over the operation?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: The U.N. hasn’t offered to take over. The United States is talking to them about what they would like to do. The French have said thus far that they’re reluctant to do that.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you be interested in having the U.N. take over?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I don’t know what it means by take over. At some point, I think that—they’re already playing an important role, and they have to play an important role. And we’ve got a large coalition of countries there, and I think it’s kind of a—oh, I don’t know what I’d call it, but the idea that everyone can keep saying, “Why don’t they ask NATO?” or, “Why don’t they get more countries involved?”—the State Department went out and asked 70, 80, 90 nations to assist. We’ve got 19 countries already assisting. We have another 19 countries that are agreeing to assist and another 11 that we’re talking to. So it’s a very large international coalition.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to intelligence. These are now the infamous words the president uttered on January 28th in his State of the Union address. Let’s watch:
(Videotape, January 28th, 2003):
PRES. BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: The White House and now the CIA say it was a mistake to include that phrase in the speech. Do you agree?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Oh, sure. Yes, indeed. George Tenet said that, the president said that. On the other hand, the use of the word “infamous” is a little strange. It turns out that it’s technically correct what the president said, that the U.K. did say that and still says that. They haven’t changed their mind, the United Kingdom intelligence people. Now, the question isn’t that. The question is: Should those words have been in the presidential speech? And the president and George Tenet have agreed it should not. It didn’t rise to that standard...
MR. RUSSERT: Why?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: ...but they’re not necessarily inaccurate.
MR. RUSSERT: Why were they taken out or should they have been taken out?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: They should have been taken out because the referencing another country’s intelligence as opposed to your own probably, according to George Tenet and the president, believe that it would have been better not to include it. It was not the basis for the intelligence assessment by the intelligence community with respect to the development of the nuclear programs in Iraq. That was not critical to it at all. In fact, it wasn’t even the five or six things that the intelligence community listed in their national intelligence estimate with respect to the Iraqi nuclear program.
MR. RUSSERT: But the very next day, Mr. Secretary, this is what you said, talking to the press on January 29th: ”[Saddam’s] regime has the design for a nuclear weapon ... and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: And right before it, I said, as the president said, and right after it, I said as the president said. I was simply repeating what the president had said.
MR. RUSSERT: But in retrospect, you should retract that comment as well just as the president has retracted his.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Exactly. And certainly when I said, “As the president said” in my statement and at the end I said, “As the president indicated,” I believe and that’s quite true.
MR. RUSSERT: When you were asked...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: In retrospect, the president would not have said it and I would not have said it, but the idea that that has any central role in the intelligence community’s assessment of what was going on in Iraq would be a misunderstanding.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, the president was going to utter those words in October and George Tenet interceded and took them out. The State Department stopped doing it in December because they felt it was important. Negroponte, the ambassador to the U.N. took it out...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...Colin Powell wouldn’t repeat it in February.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: This is how USA Today reported it: “Almost a year before President Bush alleged in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy uranium ore in Africa—seeming proof of an Iraqi effort to build a nuclear bomb—the CIA gave the White House information that raised doubts about the claim. A cable classified ‘secret’ went out from CIA headquarter to the White House Situation Room in March 2002 reporting on a visit to the African country of Niger by a retired diplomat on a special mission for the CIA. ... His account said Iraq had sought closer economic ties with Niger but had not discussed a uranium sale.”
“... Further, in December 2002, a month before Bush’s State of the Union address, the CIA told the State Department to drop a reference to the uranium allegations from a white paper on alleged Iraqi weapons programs. In a later presentation on the white paper, John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cut the Niger reference.”
So there clearly were big discussions in the administration...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Apparently.
MR. RUSSERT: ...about the accuracy. You weren’t aware of those?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: What I saw was intelligence over a couple of years’ period. We know that Iraq had acquired so-called yellow cake, and there was a good deal of discussion about—I think they way they phrased it was “fragmentary evidence,” or “fragmentary indications” of Iraq interacting with Africa on this subject. It wasn’t until ElBaradei came out publicly...
MR. RUSSERT: In March.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: ...in March, the U.N. IAEA person, and said that he felt that there was a forged document, that the intelligence community then said they agreed with ElBaradei, after looking at it, at which time, obviously it became clear that that fragmentary evidence may not have been right. Whether it is or not, I still don’t know. We know that the U.K. still believes it is correct, and I just simply don’t know. That’s not...
MR. RUSSERT: When Senator Pryor asked you on Wednesday when did you know that reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus, you said “Oh, within recent days.”
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I should have said within recent weeks, meaning when ElBaradei came out.
MR. RUSSERT: Back in March.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: In March, exactly, because I’m told that I was—that after ElBaradei came out with his statement publicly, I read it, and I’m told by the CIA briefer who briefs me that I, on that next day, said, “Who’s right on this?” And they said, “We’ll check.” And it was shortly thereafter that they came out with a piece of paper saying that they thought that ElBaradei was right, and...
MR. RUSSERT: The whole issue of intelligence is so important, because...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: It is.
MR. RUSSERT: There’s a theory now put forward that says the administration made the central rationale for the war disarming Saddam Hussein, and then administration, from the president, yourself, on down, said that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear program, and as evidence of that, the uranium from Africa, aluminum tubes, which is also questionable, the purchase of those, and that because of that threat, that potential nuclear threat, the reconstruction of the nuclear program, we needed a pre- emptive war, that we could not wait, and that if we wait for a smoking gun, it could be a mushroom cloud. In hindsight, in hindsight, do you wish the administration had been more careful in its presentation, and did you massage or hype intelligence data?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I think the answer is no to both questions. The question about the intelligence, it seems to me that it has been a very healthy discussion within the administration, where policy-makers have looked at the intel, and asked questions, and that’s good. You need feedback, that process. But has it been politicized? Certainly not. I mean, every one of the intelligence estimates where there was a disagreement—for example, on the aluminum tubes or on the cake, yellow cake, it says it right in it. It says “This agency thought this, this agency thought that,” no one changed their views for any reasons. Then you go back to the question, you cast it as though it were nuclear, and if you’ll recall, if you’ll think back, the weapons of mass destruction was always chemical, biological and nuclear, and in no instance did anyone on the administration that I know of suggest that they had a nuclear weapon. They did—we did believe, and do believe, that they had reconstituted their program, and at some point would have a nuclear weapon if left alone.
MR. RUSSERT: Vice President Cheney did say on this program they have reconstituted their nuclear weapons. Whether he misspoke or not, I’ll ask him next time he’s here.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: But he did make that phrase. Only one time on the program he said it, five other times he said program.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I’m sure he meant...
MR. RUSSERT: One time he said weapons.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I’m sure he meant program. [[RD: Guffaw!]]
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the whole idea of an issue of weapons of mass destruction. George Will, conservative commentator who supported the war, wrote this column, and let me read it to you and our viewers, because it’s very important: “Some say the war was justified even if WMD are not found nor their destruction explained, because the world is ‘better off’ without Saddam Hussein. Of course it is better off. But unless one is prepared to postulate a U.S. right, perhaps even a duty, to militarily dismantle any tyranny...it is unacceptable to argue that Hussein’s mass graves and torture chambers suffice as retrospective justifications for preemptive war. Americans seem sanguine about the failure — so far — to validate the war’s premise about the threat posed by Hussein’s WMD, but a long-term failure would unravel much of this president’s policy and rhetoric.”
If we don’t find the weapons of mass destruction, will the president’s—will our country’s credibility be hurt severely?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I think we will find them. And why do I say that? I say that because I’ve got confidence in our intelligence community, and the intelligence communities of other countries.
MR. RUSSERT: In March, you did say, “We know where they are.”
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Yeah. The phrase was almost always suspect sites, and in—the next day one would have to say where they were, not where they are, because things are moveable. And when you can take a relatively small amount of very lethal chemical or biological weapons or capability, and move it in an hour, and—I mean, think of the person went out under their rosebush in the back yard of their private home and dug up things that he’d been told to bury there a decade...
MR. RUSSERT: But if we don’t find...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Just a minute, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: ...them...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I say we will.
MR. RUSSERT: You will?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I think so.
MR. RUSSERT: Absolutely.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I believe so. I don’t say absolutely. No one can know. You know, don’t put words in my mouth, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: I’m just trying to get...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I believe it. I think that the people who work in our country in the intelligence business are honest and talented. Is it perfect? No. Almost every month something changes. They come in and they say, “You know we told you this last month? This month—and now we have some additional information from another human source or somebody else and we now think this.” Now, does that surprise me? No. Do we have perfect visibility into a vicious dictatorship like that? No. But in the aggregate, do we believe...
MR. RUSSERT: What happens...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: ...that they had chemical and biological weapons and a nuclear program in progress? The answer is yes, I believe that. And I believe it will show. We’ve only been in there 10 weeks.
MR. RUSSERT: If the president comes forward, or you come forward, in weeks and months ahead, and say to the American people, “Iran has a nuclear weapons program,” “North Korea is now transferring fuel rods and reprocessing them,” do you believe the American people will be skeptical of what the president and you are saying? Will the world be skeptical because your comments about the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam have, to this day, not been borne out?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I think that it would be fair for a listener to that to make a judgment about it, and say, “Well, how do I feel about that?” And I think the president understood that. When he went to the Congress, he said, “There’s no smoking gun.” This is a difficult problem. It is a very difficult problem for the world because at that point where a biological or a nuclear capability is transferred to a terrorist group or used, the penalty for the mistake, the error, the failure to act, is not 3,000 people, as we lost on September 11, it could be 30,000 or 100,000. Now, how do you make those judgments? You make them honestly and directly and forthrightly, and you told people what you know and what you don’t know. And that’s what we’ve done.
MR. RUSSERT: Will we allow North Korea to develop any more nuclear bombs?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: That’s a call for not me, the president, the president and the world. And the president and Secretary Powell have been working with Japan and with South Korea and with the Peoples Republic of China and with Russia. And demonstrated a deep concern about the fact that the North Korean nuclear program is progressing, that we do not have good visibility into what they’re doing with those rods, and the extent to which they are or are not reprocessing. They have told us they have nuclear weapons. They have also made assertions with respect to the case at which they’re reprocessing. Some people believe what they’re saying. Other people don’t believe what they’re saying. Are we going to be successful on the diplomatic path? I hope so. I hope so.
MR. RUSSERT: If not, would we disarm North Korea the way we tried to disarm Iraq?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: What we know is that North Korea, as a country, is one of the world’s leading proliferators of ballistic missile technology, that they are engaged in drug trafficking, they’re engaged in counterfeiting, they are a vicious repressive dictatorship. And they have a nuclear program and say they have nuclear weapons. They would undoubtedly sell those weapons or sell the fissile material if they felt it was in their interest.
MR. RUSSERT: More dangerous than Saddam Hussein?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I wouldn’t say that.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, they have nuclear bombs.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: There’s a difference. Saddam Hussein had violated 17 U.N. resolutions. The idea that the reason we went to war in Iraq was as you stated it, I think, is not fully correct. The position of Iraq was that they were in violation of 17 U.N. resolutions and submitted a fraudulent declaration as to what was going on with respect to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons by everybody’s assessment.
MR. RUSSERT: But the basis by which the president and you approached the country on a regular basis was “Disarm Saddam Hussein.” But that’s a subject for another...
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: That’s true. That’s true.
MR. RUSSERT: Before you go: Liberia. Will the president send troops to Liberia? And if so, why? And what would be their mission?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I don’t know what he’ll do. I have not had a chance to visit with him since he returned very recently from Africa. There is a humanitarian assessment team that is on the scene. There is also a military assessment team that’s looking at the ECOWAS’, the eastern African countries’ military capabilities, and at some point those assessment teams will come back and make a—correction: They won’t make a recommendation. They’ll make a report to the president as to what their assessment of the situation is, both from a humanitarian standpoint in Monrovia, and also from a standpoint as: How capable are those African nation force that conceivably could serve as a peacekeeping effort in that country? That’s up ahead of us.
MR. RUSSERT: And that’s what you think the president will decide within the next week?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: I have no idea when the president will decide, and it’ll depend entirely on when the assessments come in and what they look like and whether...
MR. RUSSERT: Are you comfortable with sending American troops to Liberia, if that’s the decision?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Needless to say, one doesn’t want to send American troops anywhere if you can avoid it. It’s a matter for the president to decide, and to the extent he makes a decision like that, then obviously, we would do our level best to fulfill it.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, as always, we thank you very much for your views.
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Thank you. |
