Transcript: Senate Armed Services Committee
Testimony of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
Federal Document Clearing House
Wednesday, February 4, 2004; 4:14 PM
<edited - full text at link>
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RUMSFELD:....Before turning to questions, let me make some comments in response to your request on the subject of intelligence and weapons of mass destruction and the testimony that Dr. Kay presented to this committee.
During my confirmation hearing before this committee, I was asked what would keep me up at night. And I answered, "Intelligence."
I said that because the challenge facing the intelligence community today is truly difficult. Their task is to penetrate closed societies -- and you might want to put that picture of a closed society up -- and organizations and try and learn things our adversaries don't want them to know.
That's the Korean Peninsula. The DMZ is the line in the middle. South Korea, the same people as in North Korea. South Korea's got light -- it's a satellite photo -- it has light and energy and opportunity and a vibrant democratic system.
RUMSFELD: North Korea is a dark, dark country. The little dot of light to the left in the center of North Korea is Pyongyang.
So their task is to penetrate these closed societies and organizations to try and learn things that our adversaries don't want them to know -- the intelligence community -- often not knowing precisely what it is that we need to know, while our adversaries know precisely what it is that they don't want them to know. That is a tough assignment.
Intelligence agencies are operating in an era of surprise, when new threats can emerge suddenly with little or no warning, as happened on September 11th. And it's their task to try to connect the dots before the fact, not after the fact. It's hard enough after the fact, but they're trying to connect the dots before the fact so action can be taken to protect the American people.
And they have to do this in an age when the margin for error is modest, when terrorist networks and terrorist states are pursuing weapons of mass destruction and the consequences of underestimating a threat could be the loss of potentially tens of thousands of lives.
The men and women in the intelligence community have a
tough and often thankless job. If they fail, the world
knows it. And when they succeed, as they often do to our
country's great benefit, their accomplishments often have
to remain secret.
Though we cannot discuss those successes always in open
session, it would be worth the committee's time to hear of
them, and I hope and trust that the director of central
intelligence, George Tenet, will be able to make some of
those recent examples of successes -- and there have been
many -- public so that the impression that has and is
being created of broad intelligence failures can be
dispelled.
I can say that the intelligence community's support in
Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the global war on terror
overall, have contributed to the speed, the precision, the
success of those operations and saved countless lives.
We're blessed that so many fine individuals have stepped
forward to serve in the intelligence community and are
willing to work under great pressure and, in more than a
few cases, risk their lives.
They faced a difficult challenge in the case of Iraq. They knew the history of the Iraqi regime, its use of chemical weapons on its own people and its neighbors. They knew what had been discovered during the inspections after the Persian Gulf War, some of which was far more advanced, particularly the nuclear program, than the pre-Gulf War intelligence had indicated.
RUMSFELD: They were keen observers of the reports of
UNSCOM in the 1990s. And they and others did their best to
penetrate the secrets of the regime of Saddam Hussein
after the inspectors left in 1998.
It was the consensus of the intelligence community, and of
successive administrations of both political parties, and
of the Congress that reviewed the same intelligence, and
much of the international community, I might add, that
Saddam Hussein was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam's Hussein's behavior throughout that period
reinforced that conclusion. He did not behave like someone
who was disarming and wanted to prove he was doing so. He
did not open up his country to the world, as did
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, South Africa had previously done --
and as Libya is doing today. Libya.
Instead he continued to give up tens of billions of
dollars in oil revenues under U.N. sanctions, when he
could have had the sanctions lifted and received those
billions of dollars simply by demonstrating that he'd
disarmed, if, in fact, he had.
Why did he do this? His regime filed with the United
Nations what almost everyone agreed was a fraudulent
declaration and ignored the final opportunity afforded him
by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.
Why? The Congress, the national security teams of both the
Clinton and the Bush administrations looked at essentially
the same intelligence and they came to similar
conclusions: that the Iraqi regime posed a danger and
should be changed. The Congress passed regime change
legislation in 1998.
In the end, the coalition of nations decided to enforce
the U.N.'s resolutions.
Dr. David Kay served in Iraq for some six months, directing the work of the Iraq Survey Group, the ISG, and reporting to Director Tenet. He and the ISG have worked hard, under difficult and dangerous conditions. They have brought forward important information.
Dr. Kay is a scientist and an extremely well-experienced weapons inspector. He's outlined for this committee his hypothesis on the difference between prewar estimates of Iraq's WMD and what has been found thus far on the ground.
RUMSFELD: While it's too early to come to final conclusions, as he indicated, given the work that still need to be done, there are several alternative views that are currently being postulated.
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First is the theory that WMD may not have existed at the start of a war. I suppose that's possible, but not likely.
Second is that it's possible that WMD did exist, but was transferred, in whole or in part, to one or more other countries. We see that theory put forward.
Third, it's possible that the WMD existed, but was dispersed and hidden throughout Iraq. We see that possibility proposed by various people.
Next, that it's possible that WMD existed, but was destroyed at some moment prior to the beginning of the conflict.
Or that it's possible that Iraq had small quantities of biological or chemical agents and also a surge capability for a rapid build-up and that we may eventually find it in the months ahead.
Or finally, there is the theory that some have put forward that it could have been charade by the Iraqis; that Saddam Hussein fooled his neighbors and fooled the world. Or that Saddam Hussein fooled the members of his own regime. Or the idea that Saddam Hussein himself might have been fooled by his own people, who may have tricked him into believing he had capabilities that Iraq really didn't have.
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These are all theories that are being put forward today.
This much as been confirmed: The intelligence community got it essentially right on Iraq's missile programs. Iraq was exceeding the U.N.-imposed missile range limits. And documents found by the ISG show evidence of high-level negotiations between Iraq and North Korea for the transfer of still longer-range missile technology.
If we were to accept that Iraq had a surge capability for biological and chemical weapons, his missiles could have been armed with weapons of mass destruction and used to threaten neighboring countries.
It's the job of Dr. Kay's successor, as the chairman indicated, and the Iraqi Survey Group to pursue these issues wherever the facts may take them.
RUMSFELD: It's a difficult task.
Think: It took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein. The
reality is that the hole he was found hiding in was large
enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands
of human beings. Our people had gone past that farm
several times; had no idea he was there.
And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects once buried can
stay buried. In a country the size of California, the
chances of inspectors finding something buried in the
ground without their being led to it by people
knowledgeable about where it was is minimal.
As Dr. Kay has testified, what we have learned thus far has not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated and what we believed he had. And it also has not proven the opposite. The ISG's work is some distance from completion. There are some 1,300 people in the ISG in Iraq working hard to find ground truth. When that work is complete we will know more.
Whatever the final outcome, it's important that we seize the opportunity to derive lessons learned to inform future decisions.
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In the Department of Defense, the Joint Forces Command has done an extensive review of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The intelligence community is also looking at lessons learned. It's doing it under the leadership of Director Tenet, with Dr. Kerr. It's being done in other elements of the community as well.
It's important also that we step back and take a look at the bigger picture and see that U.S. intelligence capabilities are strengthened sufficiently to meet the threats and challenges of this century.
The president has announced that he will be forming a bipartisan commission on strengthening U.S. intelligence capabilities. The commission will review the past successes of the intelligence community, as well as the cases that have not been successes, to examine whether the intelligence community has the right skills, the proper resources and the appropriate authorities to meet the challenges and the threats of the 21st century.
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Intelligence will never be perfect. We do not, will not and cannot know everything that's going on in this world of ours.
RUMSFELD: If at this important moment we mistake intelligence for irrefutable evidence, analysts might become hesitant to inform policy-makers of what they think they know and what they know that they don't know, and even what they think.
And policy-makers bereft of intelligence will find themselves much less able to make prudential judgments, the judgments necessary to protect our country.
I'm convinced that the president of the United States did
the right thing in Iraq, let there be no doubt. I came to
my conclusions based on the intelligence we all saw, just
as each of you made your judgments and cast your votes
based on the same information.
The president has sworn to preserve, protect and defend
the nation.
With respect to Iraq, he took the available evidence into
account. He took into account September 11th. He took into
account Saddam Hussein's behavior of deception. He took
into account Iraq's ongoing defiance of the U.N. and the
fact that he was still shooting at U.S. and U.K. aircraft
and the crews that were enforcing U.N. resolutions in
northern and southern no-fly zones. And he took into
account the fact that this was a vicious regime that had
used weapons of mass destruction against its own people
and its neighbors and murdered and tortured the Iraqi
people for decades.
The president went to the United Nations and the Security
Council and passed a 17th resolution. And he came here to
this Congress and, based on the same intelligence, you
voted to support military action if the Iraqi regime
failed to take that final opportunity to cooperate with
the United Nations.
And when Saddam Hussein did pass up that final
opportunity, the president nonetheless gave him an
ultimatum -- a final, final opportunity -- to leave the
country.
Only then, when all alternatives had been fully exhausted,
did the coalition act to liberate Iraq. And ours is a
safer world today and the Iraqi people far better off for
that action.
Senator Warner asked in his opening statement if I know of
any pressure on intelligence people or manipulation of
intelligence, and the answer is absolutely not.
I believe that Senator Roberts has attested to that from
the analysts and witnesses that he and his committee have
interrogated over a period of many, many months.
RUMSFELD: I believe that Dr. Kay answered exactly the same
way: that he talked to analyst after analyst, and knows no
manipulation of the data and no indication of anyone
expressing concern about pressure.
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Cont'd.......
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