AP News Alert:
WASHINGTON (AP) Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he hasn't considered resigning despite recent criticism of him by retired generals and said decision like that would be up to President Bush.
I'm in the middle of transcribing an interview Rumsfeld did with Bill Cunningham yesterday. It should be up here in a bit...
4:00PM Update
Transcript from yesterday's Cunningham interview:
WILLIE: Joining us now is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and uh -- Mr. Secretary, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham show.
RUMSFELD: Thank you! It is good to be with you.
WILLIE: Now, Donald, back in the good old days when these six generals were actually sitting with you; when they had the stars on their shoulders, did they tell you the things then that they're now saying? When two of the six are running for political office? Another one is writing a book. When they were in office, did they tell you, "Hey, Don, you're all screwed up! This is why you're wrong"?
RUMSFELD: You know, I don't think I ever met two or three of them in my life...that I recall.
WILLIE: Really.
RUMSFELD: Yeah, and one of them wasn't even -- he'd retired before I ever got here. And a couple of them I don't remember ever meeting. A couple of them, I do. But, no, your quite right, none of them to my recollection -- uh -- came up said, "We're worried about this" or "We're worried about that." Of course, they were at a level that that wouldn't have been likely. I met with General Franks, General Abizaid, General Casey, all the senior people, the chiefs of the services,in the chain...and -- uh -- we had great discussions about all of these subjects. And of course, the implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing almost because the fact that the war plan was fashioned by the combatant commanders. And it is reviewed in great detail by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then it is recommended to me and the President. And -- uh -- I guess everybody has their right to say what they think.
WILLIE: Well, you know, the critics right now, they want Bush to resign, they want Cheney to resign, they want Rice to resign, they wanted Michael Brown of FEMA to resign. And now they want Rumsfeld to resign. Do you feel like you're the flavor of the day?
RUMSFELD: Well, you know, its pretty clear that your point is valid. That -- That -- it's the political season. It is an election year. And people are writing books, and promoting books, and people are attacking the president directly and attacking him through me and through other people in the administration and I guess that comes with the territory.
WILLIE: Well, relative to this General Shinseki, who was a patriot and a good man; now he is being called, by the Democrats, the Oracle at Delphi, who has all the answers about troop strengths, etc. Did Shinseki, at the time, when he headed up the Army, tell you things that you contridicted him and you went against his advice at the time?
RUMSFELD: You know, uh, he was the Chief of Staff of the Army for the first portion of my tenure here. And he has a fine war record and he obviously, you don't get to be chief of staff of the Army without being a talented professional.
WILLIE: Sure.
(Crosstalk)
RUMSFELD: The people are going out today and even writing in the press that he was fired. He was never fired. He retired in his normal order. Second, they are saying that people refused to go to his retirement party. The fact is, he invited who he wanted and he happend to have not invited some other people, who he may not have wanted. Some of us were on travel anyway. So, there is a lot of misinformation flying around about that. The only issue that came up, that I can recall, was he was asked, pressed, before a congressional committee and asked how many troops he thought it would take in the post-war period and he said about the same it would take in the -- conquering the country and replacing Saddam Hussein. And they asked him, pressed him, and said how many will that be? And he said, well severla hundred thousand. And of course, he was right, it did take roughly the same number in the post-major combat operation period as it took in major combat operation but the general in charge had decided that he didn't need more than 150 or 160 thousand for major combat operations and that is basically what they held on to in the post period. So, on the one hand, it was a somewhat smaller number; on the other hand it was roughly, he was correct when he said that it was roughly the same amount.
WILLIE: Do you think, in retrospect, you know, the first casualty in war are the battle plans. As soon as the bullets start to fly, all Hades breaks loose and so you can always look back in time and say, "Man, that charge at Gettysburg didn't make any sense." And you can look back and say, "You know what? We should have skipped Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. We should have just dropped the bomb and saved all those American lives." I've heard those arguments. Looking back with the full vantage of history, do you wish in like 2003 -- the invasion started in like March of '03 -- and maybe, going forward, that perhaps it was wiser for you to have more troop strengths or to keep the Iraqi Army together. Looking back from the vantage of history, were there some mistakes made by you after the successful military invasion?
RUMSFELD: Well, let me put that in two pieces. There is, even today, there is a fair debate in my view, and a legitimate debate, as to the number of troops that there should have been and the number of troops that there should be today. And the tension is between two different aspects of it. One aspect is that if you have too few troops, the security situation is not sufficient to permit the political and governmental process to go forward. On the other hand, if you have too many troops, the concern is that you create a dependency on the part of the Iraqis, where you're doing all the heavy lifting for them and their not stepping up to the task. Or second, you create such a heavy footprint and an intrusive occupation that you actually feed the insurgency and add to the number of recruits, Iraqi recruits, in to the insurgency. So there is a tension there and it is not a science, it is an art. And people can have a different views on it. The fact is, all I can say is that all the senior generals: General Abizaid, General Franks, General Casey, all believed that the number was correct going in and that the number is correct today. And, I am not a general, I'm Secretary of Defense, and I listen to all the advice I get and in this case, I agree with them. And I don't agree with those who say it should be more because I would worry about increasing the size of the insurgency by being even more intrusive. The second thing I would say, in terms of what might have been different, we had a war plan that General Franks did and that I approved, whereby the Fourth Infantry Division was due to come in through Turkey.
WILLIE: Right.
RUMSFELD: And had they been able to come in through Turkey, but they were not able as you may recall because the Turks wouldn't let them. Had they been able to come in, they would have one of our most capable divisions able to move south immediately into the Sunni areas and may very likely have been able to capture or kill a large number of the people who are currently conducting the insurgency. And that would have, conceiveably, change things. And that was the plan, but it was not able to be implemented.
WILLIE: Now before I get to America Supports You, we have about two and a half minutes remaining, has there been, to your knowledge, one significant recommendation of the Joint Chiefs that came to you that you failed to implement in the last three or four years. One significant, after everything was said and done, did the Joint Chiefs say, "Donald Rumsfeld, do this" and Rumsfeld said, "No."?
RUMSFELD: The answer is no. I can't think of one. We had wonderful discussions. We've had some discussions with the combatant commanders. I've asked a dozen questions to make sure that people have thought through things, but the recommendations of the combatant commanders in the last analysis go in to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they have lengthy discussions and analysis and then they make a recommendation on their views of the combatant commander's proposals and I have accepted them almost -- I can't think a single major exception.
WILLIE: Now, you've offered your resignation once or twice in the past. Have you offered it in the last six months?
RUMSFELD: No, I haven't.
WILLIE: And I want ya to stay there, Donald, because I think you're the best. You're a hard-nosed guy. You know where the bodies are buried in Washington DC. You know how the Department works. Normal Americans, who live in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, want you to stay there. And don't listen to the clowns at the Washington Post or CNN. You know what I'm saying?
RUMSFELD: (laughs)
WILLIE: Now..
RUMSFELD: You're amazing. (laughs)
WILLIE: Now, lastly, America Supports You, give us a full report on that.
RUMSEFLD: Well, it is a terrific thing. You know, we have these wonderful young men and women who are so professional and volunteered to help defend freedom and serve our country in uniform and they are all around the world and they have families here at home and America Supports You dot mil website is the place that a person can go in and find out wht school groups are doing and what corporations are doing. And what cities and states and towns and non-governmental organizations and radio stations and baseball teams and basketball teams. They have all figured out some way that they want to help those troops and help their families. And what America Supports You dot mil does is that it arrays all of that information so that citizens can go on there and find out what other people are doing and get some ideas as to how they can help also.
WILLIE: Well, you're a great American. Before you sip that pina colada on a beach somewhere in Florida, I'd like for ya to hang around for about two and half more years. Win the war; win the peace; do something big; and don't listen to the critics, Donald, because they're going to be everywhere as to how the great warrior in the mud pit failed, but we need people like you and Cheney and Bush conducting the war. On the great things of value, average Americans stand with you and Bush and Cheney. And God bless ya.
RUMSFELD: Well, Bill Cunningham, I thank you, sir.
WILLIE: You're a great American.
RUMSFELD: Okay, I appreciate that.
Audio can be found
here.
