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December 14, 2006

Interview with Donald Rumsfeld

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

BRIT HUME, HOST (voice-over): In his office, on virtually the last day on the job he has held so long, the secretary showed me a training target, used by Saddam Hussein's military before the Iraq war. That's Rumsfeld's face under the helmet.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This is the target that they used in the rifle ranges and in the terrorists training camp of the Fedayeen Saddam, located just north of Baghdad.

HUME: Even at 74, Rumsfeld has no chair behind the big desk in his office, because he doesn't really use that desk. He uses another one.

(on camera): So you stand all day?

RUMSFELD: I do.

HUME: Why is that? Have you always done that, in all your offices, always?

RUMSFELD: Oh, gosh, for many decades, dating back to the 1960's.

HUME: And you don't get tired of standing?

RUMSFELD: No, no.

HUME: Remarkable.

RUMSFELD: Well, think if you were a barber.

HUME: Well I know, but you're not a barber and neither am i.

RUMSFELD: Well, but you can be one. I mean, they can stand all day. God bless them for doing it.

HUME (voice-over): He does have a new big leather backed chair, just given him in recognition of government posts he has held dating back to 1969.

RUMSFELD: That is a cabinet chair. There's the -- What they do is they stick a brass plaque on there for each job you had as member of a cabinet. And those are the ones I had.

HUME (on camera): It goes back a ways.

RUMSFELD: My attitude is there's still a lot of room.

HUME: The first is 1960, 37 years.

RUMSFELD: Yes, isn't that amazing?

HUME: Rumsfeld will be most remembered, for now at least, for the Iraq war and for the way it was fought and the size of the force critics say he refused to enlarge.

RUMSFELD: The combatant commanders, General Franks, had a plan to bring into train, so that we could produce and put in the country, something in excess of 400,000 troops. At a certain point he decided he didn't need them.

HUME: Was he under any pressure from you to make that decision?

RUMSFELD: Absolutely not. That's a mythology. This town is filled with that kind of nonsense. The people who decide the levels of forces on the ground are not the secretary of defense or the president. We hear the recommendations, but the recommendations are made by the combatant commanders and by the members of the joint chiefs of staff. And there hasn't been a minute in the last six years when we have not had the number of troops that the combatant commanders requested.

HUME: So when Generals Abizaid and Casey have recommended what they have recommended, it is clear to you that they are not making those recommendations based upon what they think the boss wants?

RUMSFELD: Oh, come on. You think these people with four stars on their shoulders run around worried about that? They've arrived. They are serious people. They are talented people. Ask them. That's utter nonsense.

HUME (voice-over): But what about the idea of sending more troops to Iraq now, as the president seems to intend?

RUMSFELD: If you are going to put more people into a combat environment, you better have a good military objective. You ought to have something that you believe is military in nature, that can be accomplished. Otherwise you are putting people into a risky situation, where they are just more targets for the enemy to shoot at. And if you don't have an understood military objective, I can't see that there is much purpose in doing it.

HUME: What is your greatest regret?

RUMSFELD: Oh, goodness. I guess that one would have hoped that the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts would have been concluded more rapidly. I think that's probably unrealistic. But the --

HUME: Well you did hope that, didn't you?

RUMSFELD: Sure. And it's taken longer than people had anticipated. It's more difficult. And we're in that unusual situation where the Department of Defense is looked at for the situations in those countries, when the reality is that we can't lose a single military battle in either country at all, not possible. But we can't win without help from others.

HUME: For example?

RUMSFELD: Well, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture. The people who help a country get a agricultural system functioning, and give jobs, the people who help create a prison system and a criminal justice system.

Go to Iraq and take these soldiers, Iraqi soldiers that are trained. There isn't a banking system, so they have to go home to give the money they get paid every month to their families. So at any given time, you are going to end up with a large number that are moving back to their homes to see that their families have money, so that they can buy the food they need.

They get wounded or injured, the health system is not functioning as well as it might. So we end up providing health care for a number of them. It is a reality that unless there is political progress in that country, unless there is economic progress in that country, and in Afghanistan as well, the military situation cannot advance beyond a certain point, even though we couldn't lose.

HUME: Rumsfeld says NATO is developing new strategies and policies suited to a war on terrorist extremists. He did not say as much about the U.N. or its outgoing attorney general, who accused the U.S. this week of abandoning it's ideals.

RUMSFELD: I saw that speech by Kofi Annan at the UN the other day, and I thought to myself, my goodness, that's not the perspective, that's not the United States of America, that's not what we're about.

People line up for years trying to come to this country, to visit it, to live here, to be a part of it, to share in the opportunity that exists here. This is a country that has values and the young men and women who serve in our armed forces have those values. They are our neighbors, they are our sons and daughters and for people to be disparaging of them, and disparaging of what they do, it seems to me, says more about them than it does about our country or the men and women in uniform.

HUME: What about Kofi Annan? What about the leadership there?

RUMSFELD: Well, it's going to change.

HUME: For the better in your view?

RUMSFELD: Oh, well, listen, I would think so.

HUME: He said he is proudest of the extent to which the military has been reshaped to fight a new kind of war.

RUMSFELD: It's something that started before I came. It will continue after I'm gone. But I think we did provide a considerable impetus to it and this institution is here to defend the American people and provide for the safety and security of the American people. And there isn't any way we can do that in this new century, unless we get rearranged to fit the modern challenge.

HUME: How advanced is that project, and to what extent did it move when you weren't moving it?

RUMSFELD: Well, it's well along. There is just no question. We've rearranged our forces all across the globe. We're in the process of adjusting them inside the United States, in terms of where they are, making them much more agile and more expeditionary.

We have, without question, strengthened our special forces capabilities, in terms of numbers and equipment. You know, you think about it, this institution basically was designed to fight big armies, big navies and big air forces. And that isn't what we're doing today and that isn't what we're likely to do in the period immediately ahead. We simply have to be able to deal with irregular warfare, and the asymmetrical challenges that are so advantageous to the enemy.

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