<edited - full text at link>
Transcript: Senate Armed Services Committee
Testimony of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
Federal Document Clearing House
Wednesday, February 4, 2004; 4:14 PM
....RUMSFELD: ....<font size=4>
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. <font size=3>
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.
<font size=4>
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.
<font size=3>
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.....
....RUMSFELD: It's a difficult task.
<font size=4>
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.....
....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.<font size=3>
And policy-makers bereft of intelligence will find themselves much less able to make prudential judgments, the judgments necessary to protect our country.
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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. <font size=3>
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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