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              Q     We hear every day on TV about vast right-wing conspiracies and neoconservative cabals and all the various strings the administration is pulling.  And so the question that keeps coming up to me is, if you guys are so powerful, why in the heck didn't you plant the weapons of mass destruction?  (Laughter.)  (Applause.)

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  (Laughs.)  Oh, my.  (Laughter.)  It's kind of nice to be out of Washington.  (Laughter.)

I was in South Korea last week. A woman I'm going to guess was 40, 45 obviously, [inaudible] Korean War 50 years ago said to me why should South Koreans go to -- Why should South Koreans go to Iraq and put their lives at risk and get wounded or killed?

I said that is a very good question. I said that I had just gotten an honors ceremony and a memorial for the Korean War and I looked on the wall and there was the name of a pal of mine from high school who had been killed the last day of the war. I said to her, I said you know, that question would have been a fair question for an American to ask 50 years ago. Why in the world should an American go all the way over to the Korean peninsula and get wounded or killed? I said look out the window. I'll tell you why. Look out there, what do you see? You see electricity, you see [energy], you see cars, you see an economic miracle. And at the demilitarized zone with a satellite shot at night you see success south of the DMZ and you see nothing but [silence] and blackness except for one pinpoint of light in Pyongyang. That's all you see from a satellite in the Korean peninsula north of the DMZ. People are starving. They've lowered the height requirement to get in the North Korean military down to 4'10" because people don't get enough nourishment. And the people going in the army in North Korea look like they're 12, 13, and 14 instead of 18, 19 and 20. It's a country that's out proliferating ballistic missile technology, threatening to sell fissile material.

And this relatively intelligent journalist who wasn't alive then obviously doesn't get it.

And also, people don't have long memories. Here's this perfectly intelligent woman who works in a free country for a free newspaper asking that question. All she had to do was look out the window and see the difference.

Q [Palestinian general]: Mr. Secretary, You talked about countries that were trying to produce weapons of mass destruction. You talked about Iraq and you talked about Iran and North Korea. I have a question, a direct question to you. What are you doing with Israel? As far as Israel is concerned, Israel has more atomic weapons in the region than any other country. Why do you remain silent in regard to Israel? I think it’s important to answer this question because this has to do with the world, the strategy that we are pursuing today. I think that if the position towards Israel were different then the situation would be different in the Near East, and this is a great problem.

Rumsfeld: You know the answer before I give it, I’m sure. The world knows the answer. We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It’s a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood that in many -- over a period of time has opined from time to time that they’d prefer it not be there and they’d like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn’t been put in the sea.

Thank you all very much.

            And today is the 20th anniversary, unhappy anniversary, of the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.  That attack killed 240-plus Americans.  Shortly after the attack, I received a phone call from Secretary of State George Shultz, saying that President Reagan and he wanted to meet with me, and asked me to serve for a period as the personal envoy of the president to the Middle East.  I remember that experience very well, and if you'll think back to it, it was a -- just an enormously violent event.  And the photographs of it were photographs of a great many wonderful Americans in a building that had been nearly totally destroyed.

            After that, the immediate reaction was a human reaction, and cement barricades were put up around buildings housing American troops, so that trucks couldn't willingly or easily get into and attack a major building; barricades somewhat like the ones you see around here.  And of course, the next thing that happened was the terrorists starting using rocket-propelled grenades and lobbing them over those barricades.  The barricades are fine for trucks; they're not so fine for airborne missiles of various types.

            The next thing, if you went down to the Corniche in Beirut and looked up, you'd see embassy buildings draped with mesh, a wire mesh, the idea being that when the rocket-propelled grenades would hit the mesh, they'd bounce off.  And so, the point being that terrorists go to school on you, and they adjust their tactics.  The mesh worked for a short period, and pretty soon, they started hitting soft targets, people going to and from where they were working.

            I mention this because it is a point that I've tried to make from time to time; namely, that a terrorist can, in fact, attack at any time, in any place, using any technique, and free people are not able to defend at every place, at every moment of the day or night, against every conceivable type of technique.  The advantage is with the attacker.  And the only way to defeat terrorists is to take the war to them; to go after them where they are, where they live, where they plan, where they hide; go after their finances; go after the people who harbor and assist them; and reduce the number of them, and the number of people supporting them and the number of people financing them, so that the numbers of new terrorists coming into the process, trained and financed and ready to go out and kill innocent men, women and children across the world, so that that number is reduced.  That's the president's policy.  It's the correct policy.

Al Jazeera: I want to put this to you, even if you want to send me to Guantanamo, and that is --

Rumsfeld: Not likely.

Al Jazeera: That is that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, either you created them or you helped them. I mean Osama bin Laden fought the Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan on your behalf, I suppose. And also you went and, I mean you offered help to Saddam Hussein in the darkest hours of his war with Iran. I think you also met him as a representative of the President, of the American President.

Rumsfeld: Well for you to say that the United States created Osama bin Laden of course would not be correct. He is what he is. There's no question but that there was a period when he was opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the United States was also opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That does not mean that the United States -- A lot of countries were opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In fact there were very few countries that liked it besides the Soviet Union. The Afghanistan people didn't like it, we didn't like it. Most of the countries of the world that don't like to see a nation get attacked didn't like it. And it happens also that Osama bin Laden didn't like it. So that commonality of interests led to that coincidence of being on the same side but it would be a misunderstanding to say that therefore the United States or the United Nations or a coalition of countries created him. He is what he is. He's a terrorist. He's proud of it.

Al Jazeera: This is a question that is in the minds of lots of people that --

Rumsfeld: Sure.

Al Jazeera: -- he was your admirer, he was fighting your war.

Rumsfeld: It was the Afghan war.

Al Jazeera: -- in proxy against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld: It was a war to liberate Afghanistan and to not have the Soviet Union continue to occupy it. Why was that our war?

We were in there trying to help those people, the Afghan people, be free of the Soviet Union. That is not our war. That's a war for liberation.

Now go to the second point of your question. It was about 1982, '83, '84, in that period, and there was a war between Iraq and Iran. Many of the countries in the region were concerned that Iraq could lose and it could cause a problem in the entire region. And the United States was asked to see what we might do. Insofar as I'm aware, the only assistance that was given was some intelligence assistance. If there was more, I'm not familiar with it. But there again, these are neighboring countries and the United States was asked and assisted with Iraq defending against, for themselves against the Iranians in that war and we provided some intelligence assistance as I understand it.

The United States also of course led a coalition of the willing to go in and throw Iraq out of Kuwait and help that country rather than being subjugated by the Iraqi regime.

There have been times in our country's history where we've made a conscious decision, for example, that we would work in close relationship, very close relationship, with brutal dictatorial regimes.  In World War II we were on the same side as Joseph Stalin, a man who killed millions of people in the Soviet Union, and we were giving them aid, we were assisting him, trying to defeat Adolf Hitler.  Deemed to be a more serious threat outside of his borders than at the time we deemed the Soviet Union to be outside of its borders.

Rumsfeld: There is no master plan. We don't run around the world trying to figure out how other people ought to live. What we want is a peaceful region.

You used the word black gold. I've seen the same kinds of articles and suggestions that that's the case.

You know, I've been around economics long enough to know that if somebody owns oil they're going to want to sell it. If they want to sell it, it's going to end up in the market. And it doesn't matter if they sell it to Country A or Country B. If they sell it, it's going to be in the market and that's going to affect the world price. Money is fungible and oil is fungible. This is not about oil, and anyone who thinks it is, is badly misunderstanding the situation.

Al Jazeera: But it depends on who controls the oil.

Al Jazeera: Would it worry you if you go by force into Iraq that this might create the impression that the United States is becoming an imperial, colonial power?

Rumsfeld: Well I'm sure that some people would say that, but it can't be true because we're not a colonial power. We've never been a colonial power. We don't take our force and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does. We never have and we never will. That's not how democracies behave. That's how an empire-building Soviet Union behaved but that's not how the United States behaves.

What have we done? We've gone into help Bosnia be free. We've helped Kosovo -- Moslem countries. We've helped Kuwait get free. We helped free the world from Hitler and from the Japanese imperial aggression in Asia in World War II. We didn't keep any real estate. We didn't keep any resources. In fact we gave money. We were the biggest donors of food aid in Afghanistan before September 11th. Before we were ever attacked it was the United States -- not a Muslim country, but a country that cared enough about the people of Afghanistan that we provided food for them.

Think of the people in Iraq today. If Saddam Hussein were gone the sanctions would be gone. The sanctions would be gone. The UN imposed economic sanctions and the people there would be better off.

            One in particular is worth mentioning here.  It's a letter he [Reagan] wrote by hand in April of 1981 to Soviet leader Brezhnev.  Brezhnev had sent him a letter accusing the United States of destabilizing the world with its territorial ambitions and imperialistic designs. President Reagan replied, quote, "There's not only no evidence to support such a charge; there's solid evidence that the United States, when it could have dominated the world, at no risk to itself, made no effort whatsoever to do so.

            "When World War II ended, the United States had the only undamaged industrial power in the world," he wrote.  "Its military was at its peak, and we alone had the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb, and the unquestioned ability to deliver it anywhere in the world.  If we had sought world domination, who could have opposed us?"

            He went on to say, "But the United States followed a different course, one unique in the history of all mankind.  We used our power and wealth to rebuild the war-ravaged economies of the world, including those nations that had been our enemies," unquote.

    But President Reagan left a legacy more powerful than any weapon. He really did do so much to restore our nation's confidence in principled American leadership around the world.  He dared to call the Soviet Union what it was -- an evil empire -- and in doing so, he reminded the entire world that evil does exist; that peaceful coexistence with it is neither possible nor desirable, and that if we have the will, the determination and the patience, it can be defeated. And it was.

Q:  Putin, President Putin has said that Iraq could be our Afghanistan or if not a vacuum for radicals from all over the world to pour into, you have a lot of mothers and fathers with their sons and daughters over there.  How do you respond to Putin's observation?

            Rumsfeld:  Well, I make two observations.  One is the Russians said that about Afghanistan also for us.  They said everything was being done wrong, it was going to turn into a disaster and they ought to know, they had 300,000 people in Afghanistan and lost, and they had another 160,000 in the countries just to the North.  They were wrong as to what is happening in Afghanistan.  Is that a perfect situation?  No.  Is it a dangerous situation to some extent?  Yes.  Are the Taliban still trying to get in there and get back?  Absolutely.  And that's why we have military forces and Afghan forces out rooting them out.

            With respect to Iraq, I guess time will tell whether Mr. Putin, President Putin is right or wrong, I think he's wrong.  The Soviet's when they did things wanted to be occupiers of countries, the American people don't want to occupy other countries, we want to liberate people and we've liberated 23 million people in Afghanistan instead of going in as the Soviet's did to occupy them, and we've liberated 23 million people in Iraq, plus or minus, and our goal is to pass over sovereignty, pass over the responsibility for security and leave.  We don't want to live precipitously, we want to help them jumpstart their economy but these are intelligent people, they're educated people, they're industrious people and I hope that President Putin is wrong.

Q [Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the United States]:  Mr. Secretary, You said that the success of the coalition last year was very positive, but now, unfortunately, the standing of the United States in that same period of time has not improved worldwide but it has deteriorated dramatically.  There are comments made by U.S. government officials in the last few days who have expressed great concern about this.  There are people who would even go as far as to suggest that this poor standing of the United States could be harmful for a strategy for the greater Middle East as presented by Minister Fisher this morning and it could almost be an obstacle to such a strategy.  My question is, do you share these concerns, how seriously do you take these concerns, and if you do take them seriously, Secretary, what ways would you suggest to improve the image of the United States, not here in Europe but also in those countries outside of Europe which are represented here?  Thank you.

     Rumsfeld:  That’s a tough question.  The perspective of the United States has gone up and down over the decades.  I suppose it will over the period ahead.  The problem in the Middle East is a serious one.  When you have Al Jazeera and Al Arabia and some of the networks in that area that people watch, constantly, daily putting out information that is biased and untrue.  It ought not to be a great surprise to find that an awful lot of that people in that area have an impression of the coalition and the United States that is a highly negative one.  What does one do about that? 

     Well, I guess they try to find ways to see that the messages are communicated more accurately.  They try to constantly behave in a way that will bring credit to them rather than to lead people to be disparaging of them.  I know in my heart and my brain that America ain’t what’s wrong with the world.  To the extent that that concept is promoted, as it is, and in this country in television as well -- to the extent that’s the case, only time, I guess, will deal with that.  But if you think of what was going on in Iraq a year ago, with people being tortured, rape rooms, mass graves, gross corruption, a country that had used chemical weapons on its own people, used them on their neighbors, defiant to the United Nations through 17 UN Security Council resolutions -- and look at the way it was treated in the press.  I mean there were prominent people who represent countries in this room that opined that they didn’t really think it made a hell of a lot a difference who won. (underline mine!)

Q:  Is there a concern that U.S. forces who are Muslim might be compromising national security - religion first, patriotism second?  Are you concerned about that?

            Rumsfeld:  See, the implication of your question is that Muslims are anti-U.S. or anti-American or in favor of terrorism, and that’s not fair to that religion. The overwhelming majority of that people – people in that religion - are perfectly fine citizens of our country and other countries.  There’s a very small fraction that’s trying to hijack that religion and conduct themselves in a way that are inconsistent with the precepts and tenets and principles of that religion, and I think that the way you cast it is not a good way to cast it.  And it is a task that the world faces that is important.  There are a lot of people being taught to go out and kill innocent men, women and children.  There is a battle of ideas; it is not a battle of religions, it is almost a battle within that religion and it is a very small minority that’s trying to hijack it and take away people into their terrorist approach to the world.  That is a problem for the whole world but it’s particularly a problem for the people of that religion and I think it’s something that we all have to address and think about because it is not going to be a nice world to live in if people keep financing terrorists, people keep training young men and women to go out and kill innocent people in large numbers.  That’s not a good world for anybody in any religion.

     Rumsfeld: Well, it's a fair question. And that's the question that the American people answer when they put people in public office. And each local government can decide what taxing policy it wants and what allocation of resources it wants. Each sate entity can decide how it wants to tax its people and how it wants to spend for the people. And the same thing's true with the federal government.

     And the idea that the Defense Department is draining away massive sums from the human needs of our country is factually just not true. How could that be the case if you've gone down from -- as a percentage of our gross domestic product, from 10 percent in the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, to 5 percent in the Ford and Carter years, down to 3- plus percent in the George W. Bush years? And even if it were true, then it's -- the answer to that allocation is in the hands of the people, and it is not, certainly, in the hands of the Department of Defense. What we do is make a case and compete for funds that the federal government decides it wants to extract from the American people in taxes and revenues. And we have to make a case, and the case is then decided by the president, in the first instance, with a recommendation to the Congress. And then under our Constitution, Article I, the president proposes and the Congress disposes. And the representatives and senators from the people in this room, the federal level, make those judgments. And I happen to think they're making pretty good judgments.

Q:  Which strikes me -- we’re chatting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – strikes me as no-brainer, this whole concept of picking up and moving out of Germany, moving a lot of troops out of Germany, moving a lot of troops out of Eastern Europe.  It strikes me as a no-brainer.  I mean, were we waiting for the Cold War to start back up again?  Why were those guys there for so long?   

SEC. RUMSFELD:  Well, you know, you get comfortable with what is.  The people there like having them there.  They liked being there and the problem was that it just wasn’t efficient from the standpoint of the American taxpayer or from the standpoint of the Armed Forces, so we had to just kind of – they were basically where they were at the end of the Cold War in smaller numbers, but the same places.  And we just simply had to face the reality that we’re going to have to get positioned in places – clearly, places where we’re wanted, places where we can use those forces and move them rapidly, places where we had training facilities, places where we can work with other countries, so we can have interoperability and close coordination.  And the net of it will be that we’ll be bringing something like some 70,000 American service people home from various countries and over 100,000 dependents, and going from about 560 installations around the world, down to about 360. (underline mine!)

            Q:  There has been a lot of hostage takings recently. And there’s been a lot of hostage releases recently, and it seems that some countries are negotiating on the side.  What do you day to one of these countries that seem to be making deals with terrorists? 

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  Well, the risk always is, of course, that if someone does that, it encourages it.  And if you reward something, you get more of it.  If you penalize it, you get less of it.  And to the extent a country decides that if they wanted to negotiate with terrorists and pay ransom or make concessions of various types, acquiescing whatever it is the terrorist wants, then the terrorist is rewarded by that and decides that that’s a good thing to do, so they do a lot more of it and it puts other people at risk and I think that’s unfortunate. 

            Q:  What would you say to these countries, some of these are allies, that seem to be negotiating? 

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  I don’t know that. 

            Q:  They seem to be, though. 

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  In some instances, people have just been released.  In other instances, it’s silence, as to why they were released.  And so I guess that I would say is each country does what they believe is right.  And I like our country’s policy and the policy of the United Kingdom and a great many other countries across the world.  Our best course is to not reward things we want to discourage. 

SEC. RUMSFELD:  I am looking for the best possible way of fashioning U.S. intelligence-gathering for the 21^st century.  And what that is, I don’t know.  I’m meeting with people because I know there are things that I don’t know. I’m meeting with people smarter than I am, because I know they’re smarter than I am.  And I am asking a lot of questions about people who think they have answers, trying to probe to see if, in fact, the solutions they have actually fit real problems.   Now I know that is enormously unsatisfactory at this time for people who are looking for the ultimate solution to the intelligence community difficulties.  But if I knew the answer, I’d give it, and I don’t. 

Q: So why have they objected? [Russians to to US pursuing a missile defense] (2001)

Rumsfeld: Oh, I don't know. I don't climb in people's mind. Obviously it's to their advantage to express concern about it. There is the ABM Treaty, which they would have to adjust. I think before it's over, they will accommodate themselves. Of course, let's be very honest about what Russia is doing. Russia is an active proliferator. They are part of the problem. They are selling and assisting countries like Iran and North Korea and India and other countries with these technologies which are threatening other people including the United States and Western Europe and countries in the Middle East. So why they would be actively proliferating and then complaining when the United States wants to defend itself against the, the fruit of those proliferation activities, it seems to me, is misplaced.

It threatens no one. And it should be of concern to no one, including the Russians or the Chinese, unless someone has an intention of doing damage to other people.

Now, the argument against every weapons system almost in history is -- the first argument is that it cost too much. And the next argument is that it won't work. And the next argument is that it will work so well, that it will be destabilizing.

Well, we're hearing all of that now. But that would have been true of anything.

Those arguments, they would have made the same arguments against every weapon system known to man. So I don't particularly find them very valid.

Q: Could I ask you just a follow-up question, Mr. Secretary, on that same subject, your thinking about missile defense? In your mind, is theater missile defense a higher priority than national missile defense?

Lehrer: What is your reading thus far of the state of the American military? (2001)

Rumsfeld: Well, there is no question it's the finest military on earth; that we know. It is also no question but that the world has changed dramatically since most of the capabilities of our current military were fashioned. Indeed, I find that most of the weapons systems were there when I was there. I approved the M-1 tank, and that is the main battle tank. I was at the roll out for the F-16 aircraft, and the F-15 was brand new, and I approved the B-1 bomber. That is all 25 years ago. These capabilities are what we have today in large measure. And they are good but they were designed for the Cold War. They were basically designed and fashioned and put forward because we had a major superpower on the face of the earth that was contesting the United States. The Soviet Union is gone today, and it is a very different world. Technologies have advanced tremendously. And it is time to -- and the president uses the word transformation and I think properly so. If you think back in the Eisenhower period in our adult life times the last transformation really took place after World War II. And it was to move us into the Cold War. And we went from artillery pieces to ballistic missiles. We went from diesel submarines to nuclear submarines -- from conventional aircraft carriers to nuclear aircraft carriers -- from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft. It was a significant change to overhead satellites for intelligence in communications. That was really the last major transformation.

Q: Mr. Secretary, can you elaborate on your statement about if it was off by a lot [Intelligence on WMD in Iraq], that would be unfortunate? Unfortunate in what sense, and for whom, regarding the estimates, the intelligence on --

Rumsfeld: Well, certainly for the Iraqi people. If, for example, Saddam Hussein, for whatever reason, refused to allow the inspectors in and do what other countries have done -- South Africa, Ukraine and others have just said, "We want to be inspected. Come in and inspect us so we can show the world that we've done the right thing." If he refused to do that, which he did -- everyone knows he submitted a fraudulent report -- if he refused to do that and the effect of it was to deny the people of his country billions of dollars over a series of years, one has to ask what was in his mind. Why would he do that? Why would he then engage in a series of covers to systematically try to prevent the inspectors from finding out what was taking place? Why would he do that?

Q: Maybe he didn't know.

Q: To maintain personal prestige in the region?

Rumsfeld: And the effect of it? Think of the harm to those people.

Q: So when you say "unfortunate," you don't mean --

Rumsfeld: I just said that.

Q: -- you don't mean to the people who put together the U.S. intelligence estimates.

QUESTION:  Chief Warrant Officer Anthony Domar, 165 MI.

            It seems like in the media there's a lot of negative and --

            RUMSFELD:  No.  [Laughter].  You've got to be kidding.

            QUESTION:  Do you have any influence on showing some of the wonderful things and good things that these soldiers do?  And my father, who is U.S. Navy Retired, would like to know that also. 

            RUMSFELD:  And you're asking who has influence on the media so that they might show something that's actually happening instead of something -- I mean something positive that's actually happening?

            QUESTION:  Yes, sir.

            RUMSFELD:  Instead of something that's negative?

            QUESTION:  Yes, sir.

            RUMSFELD:  Is that the question?  Let me repeat the question.  [Laughter].  He has the impression that from time to time some of the media leave the impression that the only things that happen are negative, is that right?

            QUESTION:  Sir, yes, sir. That's pretty close. 

            RUMSFELD:  You're asking me why?  [Laughter].

            QUESTION:  The answer I got down in Iraq was it sells, but again, folks back home say they disagree with that.

            RUMSFELD:  The truth is there seems to be, if you look at the front of almost any newspaper, any television story, the pattern tends to be that it's a negative story.  That that is what sells.  That is what attracts people.  For whatever reason, I don't know. 

            I do know this, that the people who come to this country and go to Iraq and come out are struck by the contrast, the stark contrast between what they see in terms of progress and contribution by the men and women in uniform, what they see as opposed to what they read and hear. 

            I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you this.  Our country's been around for well over 200 years now and it suggests that the American people have a pretty good center of gravity.  They must have an inner gyroscope that centers them because they're able to read all the negative things and hear all the negative things and yet they're able to sift through it and sort through it and come to reasonably right decisions about what's really happening.

            I can tell you what's really happening.  You, the people in this room and the people across this country from the United States in uniform, the coalition countries that are increasing all the time as NATO takes a bigger and bigger role, are doing an absolutely superb job for the people of Iraq and for the people of the world, helping to make this a stable, moderate Muslim country, and in an important part of the world at an important point in history, and I thank all of you for what you're doing.

         Teltschik: Thank you, Secretary.  The next one is Mr. Grant from London from the Center for European Reform.

            Mr. Grant:  I have a question, Mr. Secretary, about the EU’s constitutional treaty.  The governments have agreed on a new so-called constitution which, if implemented, would create a European foreign minister, a European diplomatic service with the objective of a more unified, coherent EU foreign policy.  Is that good for America, if that objective is fulfilled and would you urge the European countries to ratify and implement that constitutional treaty?

            Secretary Rumsfeld:  Goodness gracious, what does that have to do with anything I talked about?  You are running a disorderly house here, Horst.  Does that mean they abolish all national foreign ministers?  No? Oh, well.  (Laughter)  Just kidding.  You know I don’t know that it is really for the United States to be opining on that.  We have had a position in our country that Europe ought to do what Europe wants to do.  And over the years, as Europe has arranged itself incrementally in different ways and become somewhat more unified, in a step-by-step process, the United States has always found a way to work with whatever arrangements Europe decided on.  These are complicated questions that have to be sorted through internally and, at least, the Department of Defense of the United States has no formal position on that.

            Teltschik:  Quite understandable. The next one is Mr. Hoyer.

            Secretary Rumsfeld:   Back in Chicago you would say, some of my friends are for it and some of my friends are against it, and I’m for my friends.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, Canada's begging out of the missile defense testing and as a result Secretary Rice has canceled a visit to Canada.  How much has this hurt the missile defense testing program, and how has it hurt U.S. relations with Canada?

     RUMSFELD:  Well first it's not clear to me that the canceling of the trip was a direct result of what you're talking about.  I think that might be a misunderstanding.  Second, we have no need for Canada to participate in missile defense.  The program will go on just as it would have without them.  Had they decided to participate it would have benefitted them, but they've made a decision that a sovereign nation can make and it doesn't damage our relationships whatsoever.  They're perfectly free to decide anything they want in something like that and it will not adversely affect our missile defense program in the slightest.

Q: I’d like to ask.  Are your governments concerned about charges of political meddling or perhaps trouble-making by President Chavez in the region? Are you worried about the purchase of 100,000 AK-47assault rifles?

            Alencar: The question was asked in the plural, and so I think that the question should be answered in the first place by the most important individual here.

            Rumsfeld: Mr. Vice President, you just passed the buck. Certainly I’m concerned. If one thinks about it, the discussion that’s taking place,  as I understand it, is concerning something in the neighborhood of 100,000 AK-47s to be moved from Russia possibly to Venezuela.  I don’t know if it’s firm, but I’ve read about it and heard it discussed.  Not just in the press, but bilaterally.  I can’t imagine what’s going to happen to 100,000 AK-47s.  I can’t imagine why Venezuela needs 100, 000 AK-47s.  I just hope that, personally hope, that it doesn’t happen.  I can’t imagine that if it did happen, that it would be good for the hemisphere.

            RUMSFELD:  Sure.  The Shia and the Kurds that participated fully in the elections had been reaching out to the Sunnis which is a very positive thing.  Second, the Sunnis I think – well, who knows, I can't speak for all the Sunnis. 

But if you dropped a plumb line through all the intelligence I've seen, the Sunni leadership that I've read about is reasonably well-convinced that they made a terrible mistake by not participating in the election and they're leaning forward right now and talking and discussing and trying to figure out how they can play in the process that will take place going forward to fashion a constitution and then elect a permanent government. I don't think they'll make that mistake again.

            NPR:  Does the intelligence you see also suggest that the Sunni leaders who seem to be leaning forward, as you put it, they can also bring along the insurgent fighters?  They could actually end the conflict?

            RUMSFELD:  I think very likely what -- People tend not to move from being a terrorist or an insurgent fighter all the way over to support for the government. 

What they do is they become less of a fighter or less of an insurgent, and the fellow who was less of one already becomes neutral, and the person who was neutral becomes kind of positive. And you move across that spectrum. And it's generally characterized as a tipping process.

            What causes it to tip?  Answer.  Political, economic, and security.  Another thing that causes it to tip -- tip meaning that the mass of people in that country, more of them support the government than oppose it -- favorable tipping or vice versa, it can tip.

It's manifested in a lot of different ways.  It's manifested in the number of people signing up to serve in the security forces.  It's manifested in the number of people who voted, over eight million.  It's manifested by the hundreds who put their name on the ballot and were threatened to be killed.  It's manifested by all the people who walked past those signs saying “you vote, you die.”  It's manifested by the number of tips we get and intelligence information.  And most of those indicators are improving.  So it's improving, the situation.

            QUESTION:  Sir, Sergeant First Class Dimachio from the Island of Saipan.

            My question is about shortfalls in recruiting personnel.  Is there an issue?  What is the plan to fix it?

            RUMSFELD:  Well, it was expected that we could see some softness in recruiting about close to a year ago, and as a result a large number of additional recruiters were put in place.  Some additional incentives were put in place.  And the work has been going forward.

            There's a lag always when that occurs, but it is expected that most of the services will come very close to their targets by the end of the year.

            One of the reasons for the shortfall, I'm told, is because retention has been so high.  Interestingly, retention has been particularly high among folks who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And if you think about it, it's the force, the existing force, the active force as they leave that become the pool for the Guard and the Reserve and it is in the Guard and the Reserve where the shortfall has occurred for the most part.  So I think that what we'll find is as we go forward -- We also have done, I think it's 35 or 40 different things to reduce stress on the force and it is expected that that will also assist in improving the recruiting and retention figures.  Thank you.

            Q     Human rights groups continue to criticize what they've described as systematic abuses in the interrogation process.  The ACLU today released a memo they obtained from the Army by General Sanchez in September '03, and they said that contains 12 techniques that far exceeded -- interrogation techniques -- far exceeded limits established by the Army's own field manual.  Human Rights Watch issued a release today talking about a case of a Yemeni businessman -- they're saying this is reverse rendition in which he was arrested by the Egyptians and then rendered to Guantanamo.  And the quote on that is, "The Bush administration continues to believe that by invoking the word `terror' it can detain anyone in any corner of the world without any oversight."  And I wonder if you would just respond to the suggestion that there is a systematic problem rather than the kinds of individual abuses we've heard of before.

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  I don't believe there's been a single one of the investigations that have been conducted, which has got to be six, seven, eight or nine --

            GEN. PACE:  Ten major reviews and 300 individual investigations

of one kind of another.

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  And have you seen one that characterized it as

systematic or systemic?

            GEN. PACE:  No, sir.

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  I haven't, either.

            Q     What about --

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  [Next] Question. 

Q     (Laughs.)  Just one question.  What the ACLU has been contending is that DOD is not holding back these documents out of fear of national security but, rather, fear of embarrassment.  Do you think that that's --

            SEC. RUMSFELD:  That's just not true.  I mean, I -- I shouldn't say it's not true, I just don't know.  But I can't imagine it's true because the orders and directions we've given is to have full transparency, to the extent it's consistent with national security interests of the country. 

            And if anyone can validate that allegation, I'd be happy to look into it.  But I doubt that they can.  It sounds like a political charge.

Secretary Rumsfeld:  We have an executive branch of government, and I suspect many of you do, that is really still organized for the Industrial Age, not the Information Age.  And so is the subcommittee system in Congress organized for the Industrial Age, and not the Information Age. We have an enemy -- these terrorists that don’t have bureaucracies, don’t have parliaments, don’t have freedom of information laws, don’t have any of those things and are able to turn on a dime -- and those of us in government have difficulty. 

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