Rumsfeld signals uncertainty on the outcome
New York Daily News
WASHINGTON - For the first time in public, a somber Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised the possibility Wednesday that the U.S. mission in Iraq could fail.
Rumsfeld said the prison abuse scandal had delivered a "body blow" to the nation-building effort in Iraq that has cost the lives of more than 770 U.S. troops.
"Will it happen right on time? I think so. I hope so. Will it be perfect? No … Is it possible it won't work? Yes," Rumsfeld said.
In the overall war on terror, Rumsfeld said the U.S. was making progress in Afghanistan, but "I look at Iraq and all I can say is, I hope it comes out well, and I believe it will. And we're going to keep at it."
Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said they would go ahead with the June 30 transfer of limited authority in Iraq and review the situation in the fall to decide whether U.S. troops could begin withdrawing.
"That's the next time we would have a lens on what the requirement would be" and whether some of the 135,000 U.S. troops could be sent home, Myers said.
The normally unflappable Rumsfeld at times appeared defensive and emotional at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the Pentagon's request for an additional $25 billion to fund the Iraq war - a figure he conceded was only a partial payment on what the war will cost next year.
Rumsfeld glumly listened as senators read despairing e-mails from U.S. troops in Iraq and he requested extra time at the end of the hearing to deliver a rambling statement ripping media coverage of the prison abuse scandal.
"I've kind of stopped reading the press, frankly," Rumsfeld said, his voice quavering at times. Instead, Rumsfeld said he was reading a book on Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's bloody drive on Richmond in the last year of the Civil War.
Earlier in the hearing, Republicans joined Democrats in questioning whether Rumsfeld had a viable plan to transfer authority to a viable Iraqi government.
"We are only 42 days away from turning over this country to the Iraqi leadership, whatever that is," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.. "I can envision that this situation will not work."
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