Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Regis le Sumier, Paris Match Magazine
excellent
interview -- Donald Rumsfeld with Regis le Sumier, Paris Match Magazine.
Couple of highlights:
bq. Le Sumier: You stood as one of the biggest [partisans] of the American intervention in Iraq. Eight months after the start of the war the American Army is facing an enormous challenge there, in this country. What went wrong, and do you admit you made a mistake in underestimating the post war?
bq. Rumsfeld: First of all, the decision to go into this conflict was a decision that was made by the country through the Congress. It wasn’t by one individual or one cabinet member, and I don’t know that your characterization of my role is necessarily quite right. I fully support the decision and the Congress fully supports the decision. I think that when one looks back in history and thinks that there are 23 million people who have been liberated from a dictator that used every conceivable repressive technique or device to repress his people, that most people with the benefit of some time will agree that it was a good thing.
and
bq. Le Sumier: We'll come to that a little later. But you declared victory on May 1st President Bush did. What --
bq. Rumsfeld: What he said was not victory. He said that, on May 1st he said that major combat operations had been concluded. He was correct. Other people characterized that as claiming victory. We said all along that it would take time.
and
bq. Le Sumier: But to go back to Iraq, I mean the absence of France, Germany, Russia on the level of troops and experience. Do you admit in a way "old Europe" as you named it, would have been useful after all?
bq. Rumsfeld: Everyone said it would be useful from the first start. Who ever suggested it wouldn't be useful? It happened that they made other decisions but the United States went to the United Nations first they went to the Congress, then went to the United Nations, went to the United Nations twice. So it wasn't as though the United States was "going it alone". The United States went to the United Nations twice. The United States went and looked for other countries and asked for assistance and got it from 34 countries now in Iraq.
bq. You phrased the question "don't you admit now that it would have been helpful", the United States was looking for help from the beginning. And some countries made their own decision not to help, and that's their right as sovereign countries, and that's fine. Every country gets to make their own decisions like that.
and
bq. Le Sumier: When you visited Guantanamo, 10 Delta, what was your impression when you saw the face of the people that were some of them at least were behind that. What was your impression of that?
bq. Rumsfeld: What a shame, what a waste of lives to be trained to go out and kill innocent men, women and children instead of being trained in language or mathematics or something that could be useful to the world. A lot of them are young. You just think man's inhumanity to man. Why would they do that? Why would that make sense? What is it we all need to do in the world to reduce the number of people who are trained to go kill innocent people and to think that's a good thing to do, whether because they believe it or because of money or because of something else.
and
bq. Rumsfeld: A free people by definition have to be free. That's what we are, in your country and in my country. Once you decide that you're going to be terrorized, which is the purpose of terrorism. Terrorism means to terrify people, implant fear in their heads so that they'll alter their behavior. And once you become terrorized, once you become fearful, they've won. They've achieved what they want. They've altered your behavior. That's as true for an individual as it is for a nation.
bq. Le Sumier: But you cannot --
bq. Rumsfeld: I can't just sit here in the office and hope that something won't happen to me,
just like a country can't sit there and hope something won't happen to them. This is a very serious problem for the world.
(emphasis mine)
Wonderful stuff - hope some pragmatic heads in Old Europe read this...
Posted by DaveH at December 10, 2003 9:57 PM