(Infinity Radio Town
Hall, moderated by Steve Kroft, CBS
News.)
Kroft: Welcome
back. This is Steve Kroft, and I am now
at the Pentagon with Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld.
(To Secretary
Rumsfeld.) I won't ask you what you
were doing, but I'm glad you could join
us. You missed one call, and I want to
ask -- there were two very good
questions. The first one was how many
personnel do we have in Iraq right now?
And what do you see as the outside limits, in
terms of the number of people we might need
to keep the peace there?
Rumsfeld: At
the present time, the United States has in
Iraq roughly 147,000. It's gone up
several thousand in the past week or
so. I think it was 142,000 the last
time I looked. And then there are
coalition forces. And the coalition
forces vary from -- anywhere from, I suppose,
12 (thousand) to 18,000. So that in
addition, we have a large number of Kurdish
forces in the north that have been providing
stability operations. And in addition,
there are a number of Iraqis who have been
recruited and hired as policemen and security
officials in a number of the locations
throughout the country. So, the total
number has to be, you know, well up close
towards 200,000, I would think, if you count
all the different -- with 147,000 being the
U.S.
Kroft: The
second part of the question, and -- is about
Saddam Hussein. And the last time we
did one of these live radio hookups a little
more than six months ago, that was the main
topic of conversation. Do you have any
idea where he is and whether he is dead or
alive? And is there anything that you
can tell us about that?
Rumsfeld:
No. We don't know if he's dead or
alive, and we -- if he's alive, we don't know
where he is, and if he's alive, we don't know
whether or not he's healthy. Until you
have him, you don't have him. And it's
simply a matter of continuing to interrogate
people that have been taken into custody and
learning more and then pursuing it. We
do know he's no longer running Iraq.
Kroft: There
was a number of -- there were a number of
targets in which you had hoped that perhaps
you had killed him. Have those sites
been excavated, and are you satisfied that he
was not killed in either of those
attacks?
Rumsfeld:
There were only two locations that I recall
where they suspected senior officials might
have been, command-and-control- type
leadership officials. And I believe
they've done some preliminary site
exploration on at least -- I think on both of
them, but have not found anything that's
determinative.
Kroft: We're
ready for our next call. This is from
Tracy (sp) at KCBS in San Francisco.
Q: Hello
--
Kroft: Go
ahead, Tracy (sp).
Q: Hello, Mr.
Secretary.
First of all, I'd
like to say thank you very much for your
service to our country.
Rumsfeld: (To
Mr. Kroft.) Tell her she's going to have to
start over. I didn't hear it.
Q: Oh, I'm
sorry. I first of all wanted to thank
you for your service to our country, Mr.
Secretary.
Rumsfeld:
Thank you very much.
Q: You're
doing a great job.
I listened to the
steps that you outlined the other day at the
Council of Foreign Relations and in your
op-ed piece. And my question is, when
will we know if we're doing enough to improve
the current situation in Iraq? Will it
be a matter of months?
Rumsfeld: I
would think that what we ought to be able to
do is we can measure certain things and know
whether or not they're getting better.
For example, we can actually have metrics
that determine the extent to which the
electric power is either below where it was
pre-war, about where it was pre-war, or
better than where it was. And we're
trying to develop the ability to track that
on electric power. The same thing on
clean water, the same thing on food supplies,
the same thing on hospitals and
medicines. So those kinds of things we
can track and have a reasonably high
confidence that they're going to continue on
a line, a trend line that we can project.
What we can't
project, really, is the security
situation. We can measure it and know
what is actually happening, but in terms of
being able to judge how many people -- for
example, there were something like 100,000
criminals that were let out of Iraqi
prisons. All the prisons were empty
when the coalition forces arrived in the
country. And those people are out on the
streets, and it's just going to take time to
arrest them, and they're going to keep doing
bad things, one would think.
In addition, the
enforcers for the Saddam Hussein regime are
still there. All of them were not
captured or killed. And these are
Ba'ath Party members, senior Ba'ath Party
members, they're the Special Republican
Guards, they're the intelligence service
people, the Fedayeen Saddam. And to the
extent they manage to cause problems, that
could increase or decrease, depending on how
successful they were, and then how successful
we were in pursuing them.
There's one other
major source of adverse influence in the
country and that is there are a number of
Iranian Revolutionary Guard and so-called
Quds forces -- people in the country.
And the Iranians are beaming in radio
programs trying to stir up people in Iraq to
oppose the coalition. How successful
they'll be, again, is not something we can
measure in advance. We certainly intend
to try to prevent them from being
successful.
Kroft: Next
caller is Alex from KDKA in
Pittsburgh.
Go ahead, Alex.
Q: Mr.
Secretary, it's an honor and a privilege to
speak with you.
Rumsfeld:
Thank you very much.
Q: My question
is, being that the -- things have changed
quite a bit since 9/11, the world is
changing, and you yourself said so, are we
planning and are we able to establish a
military base in Iraq, strategically placed
somewhere in that sector, from where we can
operate and do whatever would be necessary in
the future to do whatever we would need to
do?
For example, if we
would have tensions occur to a heightened
level with Iran, et cetera, if we would have
a military base or beachhead established, it
might aid us in that event, maybe a
Guantanamo-type arrangement or something
along that line. Do we have any plans,
and are we able to do anything like that?
Rumsfeld:
Well, it's an interesting question, and let
me answer it this way. First, there
eventually will be an Iraqi government, and
it will -- at the present time, Special Envoy
Jerry Bremer is taking those steps that would
be appropriate to have some sort of an
interim Iraqi authority, and that will be
followed by a constitutional process.
And that would be followed by eventually an
Iraqi government.
It would be up to an
Iraqi government to make a judgment as to
whether or not they would want any kind of
U.S. presence physically after we were no
longer needed from the standpoint of their
security. At the present time, we do have
forces there, and we are, of course, trying
to provide the security that's necessary for
them to be successful in navigating from a
dictatorship to a freer system, a more civil
society.
I would say
this: We don't have any plans to
maintain permanent forces in Iraq. We
like to be where people want us to be and
where it's a hospitable environment.
And the neighbors of Iraq have been very
hospitable to us. And we have -- at the
present time, we have air bases and sea bases
and staging areas for forces that seem to be
quite appropriate for our needs in the
region, so we don't feel we have a need for
anything additional in Iraq.
Kroft: Mr.
Secretary, are you saying that we're not
welcome in Iraq?
Rumsfeld: Not
at all. I'm just simply saying there's
no government yet in Iraq that could make a
judgment on that subject. There are
governments in the neighboring countries,
which is where we've been invited and in some
cases been involved for 50 years, have very
close military-to-military
relationships. And it is, I think,
premature to even have an idea what might be
appropriate in Iraq. But we don't have
any plans for Iraq.
Kroft: When do
you think there might be --
Rumsfeld: From
a military standpoint.
Kroft: When do
you think there might be a government in
place, even a provisional government in place
in Iraq?
Rumsfeld: I
don't know. I wouldn't call it a
provisional government. Currently
there's a coalition provisional authority,
which is the coalition. It will be
followed by some sort of an interim
authority, as opposed to a government.
And Jerry Bremer is working at the present
time with the Iraqis to fashion something
that could be considered an interim Iraqi
authority, which would then begin to take
some responsibility for some of the less
sensitive ministries, for example.
And then that group
of people would begin the process of thinking
through how they want to approach their
constitution. Do they want to have a
constitutional convention? Do they want
to fashion a constitution and then put it to
a vote in the country? And then that
constitution would determine what kinds of
elections might follow. That could be some
time off.
Kroft: You
wasted no time in replacing General Garner.
Obviously --
Rumsfeld:
That's just not correct.
Kroft: No?
Rumsfeld:
That's just not correct. General Garner
is not being replaced. General Garner
is -- he has done and is doing a wonderful
job, and he is first-rate individual.
We asked him last year to undertake this
responsibility and begin the process of
organizing and being prepared for success, in
the event that a change of regime took
place. He did that, and he's done it
very well.
He said at that time
that he did not want to make a long
commitment. We said at that time that
we knew we'd want to bring in a senior
civilian official at some point. It was
all understood at the outset. He is not
being replaced. And the way the press
has carried it has been most unfortunate.
Kroft: Are you
happy with the way things are going in
Baghdad, in particular?
Rumsfeld: I
am. I'm never satisfied, and no one
ever is. But if you look at the number of
murders in the American cities and in places
like Paris and Moscow and Los Angeles and
Baltimore, and the numbers of robberies and
larcenies and burglaries, it -- and then you
compare the size of Baghdad -- you ask
specifically about Baghdad -- it's pretty
clear that in our cities and in the cities of
the world there is something other than
perfect order. There are a lot of
people getting murdered every month in
American and European cities. There are a lot
of thefts that take place every month.
No one likes it. No one wants to
condone it. No one thinks that that's
good.
On the other hand,
in a city of 5-1/2 million people, as Baghdad
is, there -- I guess -- we can't expect that
it -- that when 100,000 criminals have been
let loose out of the jails of the country,
and there are still people in the Ba'ath
Party who are attempting to cause disorder,
we can't expect that there's going to be
perfect order.
We're -- we intend
to impose order, to the extent that's
necessary. And we intend to, as soon as
possible, pass off the responsibility for
providing security in that country to Iraqi
people.
Kroft: The
call-in number here at the Pentagon is
1-800-736-3666. Live from the
Pentagon, this is Infinity Radio Connect with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
I'm Steve Kroft, CBS News. We'll pause
briefly now on these Infinity Broadcasting
stations.
(Pause.)
Kroft: This is
Infinity Radio Connect. I'm Steve
Kroft, CBS News, live at the Pentagon with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr. Secretary, we
have a call from Mike in your hometown,
listening on WBBM in Chicago.
Q: Hello, Mr.
Secretary.
Rumsfeld:
Hello, Mike.
Q: Hey.
Glad that you could make it today. My
question is, concerning the military pay
structure, these members of the military
services put their lives on the line, they do
a lot of work, and yet we read that a lot of
them seem to be living at a poverty type of
scenario. And I've got a nephew that's
in the Marines, and I would hope that we were
able to do something to bring them into some
sort of commensurate pay for what they
do.
Rumsfeld:
Well, your -- that's certainly a fair
comment. And I can assure you that the
administration and the Congress both agree
with that and have, in fact, increased the
pay of the military each of the last two
years. And there's proposals in again
this year for an increase. I think
there's a slight misunderstanding about the
number of people who are living at a food
stamp or poverty level, as you point
out. There are some. They tend to
be people who do not stay in that
circumstance. They tend to be people
who go into the military because they want to
be in the military, they are volunteering,
and they come in with sizable families and
they start at the very lowest pay
grade. So, almost by definition,
they're in that circumstance. As they
get promoted and as their circumstance
changes, they get training and so forth, they
end up moving out of that. So they're
-- it would not be correct to think that
there are a large number of people who are in
that status and stay there, because it simply
isn't the case.
Kroft: Thank
you. We have another caller from
Philadelphia. This is Carl , who's listening
on KYW.
Q: Yes, Mr.
Secretary. My name is Carl. Mr.
Secretary?
Rumsfeld: Yes,
I'm here, Carl.
Q: Oh, I'm
sorry. Yes, it's a pleasure speaking to
you sir. And my question is the Armed
Services Committee -- the Senate Armed
Services Committee was debating the merits of
the use or the possible research into the
so-called mini nukes. And as -- and the
criticism seemed to be that this would be a
problem with regard to proliferation
throughout the other nations of the
world. I was wondering your opinion on
the idea of the mini nukes for the use
against bio-chem weapons, I believe they were
referring to.
Rumsfeld: Yes,
you're correct, that there has been that
discussion on Capitol Hill. And it's a
useful debate and discussion, because it
informs and educated the world on the
subject. We, of course, as a country
and other countries -- Russia and a number of
others -- have what we call strategic nuclear
weapons, which are very high-powered, and we
also have theater nuclear weapons, or
tactical weapons, which are at a much lower
power. The discussion that's going on
is that we have proposed that there be a
study to determine whether or not it makes
sense to develop a very low-yield nuclear
weapon for the purpose of deeply penetrating
the ground, because there are increasingly
around the world a number of situations where
people are doing things underground --
they're manufacturing underground, they're
storing underground, they are even in some
cases capable of launching from
underground.
In addition, we
don't have today a very effective deep-earth
penetrator. We're not proposing to
develop one. What we're proposing at
the moment is to study a variety of ways,
including a low-yield nuclear weapon, for the
purpose of deep-earth penetrating it, at
which point we then would make a judgment and
have to go back to the Congress, in the event
we thought that was something that was
needed. But we've just not gotten to that
point yet.
In terms of causing
additional proliferation, I think that's
really not the case at all. There are
nuclear weapons being -- we haven't made new
nuclear weapons for some time. The
nuclear weapons are being made all the time
in Russia. Any number of countries
currently have nuclear programs that are
underway -- Iran does, North Korea does, and
other nations as well -- China. So I
think that any suggestion that it would
contribute to proliferation, which is at the
present time -- I would almost have to
describe it as pervasive, the proliferation
situation doesn't need any further
encouragement from anybody to be going and
doing what's being done.
Kroft: Mr.
Secretary, we've gotten some questions that
have been sent in by e-mail, and I wanted to
read one to you. It begins, "In the
months leading up to the war with Iraq, both
the United States and British governments
claimed that they had compelling evidence
that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons
of mass destruction. Because of
national security, the exact nature of the
information could not be revealed. We
are now some seven weeks into the occupation
of Iraq, and I have to ask where are the
stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction? Was this war waged under a
false pretext, or are there
intelligence-gathering failures? An
affirmative answer to either would be
unsettling."
Rumsfeld:
Well, I can assure you that this war was not
waged under any false pretext. The
material that Secretary Powell presented to
the world and the United Nations, and the
material that Prime Minister Blair and his
government in England presented to the world,
was intelligence information that had been
gathered, accumulated and was appropriate for
declassification.
We believed then,
and we believe now, that the Iraqis have --
had chemical weapons, biological weapons, and
that they had a program to develop nuclear
weapons, but did not have nuclear
weapons. That is what the United
Kingdom's intelligence suggested as
well. We still believe that. We
also know that he has used chemical weapons
-- Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons
against his own people, against the Kurds,
and against the Iranians. So it -- you
have the combination of intelligence, good
intelligence, plus a pattern of having
already used those weapons.
Now, why haven't we
been able to provide the kind of evidence
that would have validated all of that in the
last seven weeks -- less than seven weeks,
still, since Baghdad fell. And I think
the answers are several reasons. And
number one, it's not because they're not
there. We believe they're there.
But it is a country about the size of
California. There are literally
hundreds of suspect sites. Saddam
Hussein had been functioning in an
inspections environment for years and years,
and has gotten very good at it.
They were able to
hide things very successfully. They
took documentation. They threatened
people and killed people who said that they
might talk. You may recall that two of
his sons-in-law left the country and went to,
I believe, Jordan and revealed their WMD
programs. And when they came back to
Iraq, they were murdered by Saddam Hussein --
his two sons-in-law. So the people were
intimidated and threatened.
We never believed
that we or inspectors would just suddenly
trip over them and find them. We always
believed that because he was so successful at
hiding things and denial and deception, that
when -- the way we would ultimately find them
would be through other people telling us
where they were -- defectors, people we
capture, who finally decide to just tell the
truth. And we still believe that's
going to be the case.
We have teams of
people that are out looking. They've
investigated a number of sites. And
within the last week or two, they have in
fact captured and have in custody two of the
mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked
about at the United Nations as being
biological weapons laboratories. We
have people who are telling that they worked
in these vehicles. And they look at
panels and say, "That was my work station in
that panel, and that's what it's for."
Now people are
saying, "Well, why haven't we found
anything?" And I would respond by saying, A,
it's going take some time, and B, we have
found things. The CIA very recently, I
believe, issued a declassified document on
their website, where someone can actually go
and find photographs and data that discusses
these mobile laboratories, which are
precisely what Secretary Powell talked about
to the United Nations.
Kroft: We're
going to take a break, Mr. Secretary, be
right back. Live from the Pentagon,
this is Infinity Radio Connect with Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. I'm Steve
Kroft, CBS News. We'll pause briefly now on
these Infinity Broadcasting stations.
(Pause.)
Kroft: This is
Steve Kroft, live at the Pentagon with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
You're listening to Infinity Radio
Connect.
I want to follow up
one question about the weapons of mass
destruction, because it's been the subject of
a lot of e-mail that we've gotten. The
other day you said that although we're still
searching for them, it's possible that Saddam
may have destroyed his chemical and
biological weapons before the beginning of
the war. Does that mean that we weren't
sure, at the time that we invaded Iraq,
whether Saddam actually had them and was
prepared to use them?
Rumsfeld:
No. If anyone would look at the
transcript of what I actually said, I -- they
speculated as to why we haven't -- I was
asked the question why we haven't found them
yet. And I listed, I believe, four or
five possibilities. And I responded
very much the way I just did to you
here: that he was very good at
functioning in an -- Saddam Hussein -- in an
inspection environment.
So, he dispersed
things -- we know that from the
intelligence. He hid things -- we know
that from the intelligence; he hid
documentation. He intimidated the people that
were working on those programs so that they
wouldn't talk to the U.N. inspectors.
And there was speculation that they might try
to arrange their program so that they could
do what in business you would call
"just-in-time delivery"; that is to say, not
maintain large stocks, which are dangerous
and can be a problem, but in fact, have
things like this mobile laboratory which can
produce things in a rapid way and have them
when you need them.
There also was
speculation and rumors and chatter in
intelligence that suggested that they buried
things, and that it would be hard to
find. There also was speculation in
intelligence chatter that they might have
tried to move some of them to a neighboring
country.
And my personal view
is not any of those, because that's just
intelligence chatter. My personal view
is we're going to find them, just as we found
these two mobile laboratories.
So it is -- you say
is it possible? Is it possible, I just
don't know.
Q: Briefly,
are you happy with the quality of the U.S.
intelligence that you have been getting?
Rumsfeld: You
know, you always wish you had perfect
visibility into what's going on in the world
because you'd be better able to save lives
and better able to defend the American
people. We don't live in a perfect
world. And when you're dealing with
repressive dictatorships and closed
societies, it is very, very difficult to do
that.
When you were
dealing with the old Soviet Union, 30 years
ago, you could get quite good because you
were looking at one country and over a long
period of time, decades, and you could
develop a lot of skills and knowledge and
determine behavior patterns. When
you're dealing with a number of countries and
the flow of weapons of mass destruction among
those countries, it is much more difficult,
and particularly when you're dealing with
countries that are such dictatorial, closed
systems; that people don't roam around freely
and people don't go in and out freely, and
you don't have an opportunity to learn
through defectors, to the extent you did with
the Soviet Union.
Kroft: We have
a caller, John, from KDKA in Pittsburgh.
John, are you
there?
Q: Yes.
Secretary, it's a pleasure and honor to speak
to you. Prior to the war, there was talk of
the nuclear power plant that the Iranians are
building. I was wondering how close to
completion and being operational would that
be?
Rumsfeld:
Well, there's a -- that falls on my -- the
answer to the last question. We don't
know of certain knowledge how close the
Iranians are. The U.S. intelligence
community, and other intelligence communities
in the world, John, do assess that the
Iranians have a nuclear weapon program.
We also know that there are -- that they have
an active ballistic missile program.
How close they are
to having a weapon -- certainly, they're
intelligent people. There's a great
deal of information about how to do these
things that is available in the public these
days. There are also a number of
technicians who used to do it in other
countries who hire themselves out to assist
people in how to do it. So, one
reasonably has to believe that if you have
seriousness of purpose, you have money, you
have intelligent people and you have networks
of people around the world that are available
to help you with the more difficult aspects
of it, that it's going to happen. And
the -- I think reasonable people assume that
sometime in this decade, the Iranians, if
they continue to pursue this, which is
unfortunate, that they will, in fact, have
nuclear weapons. Some would estimate
earlier, some would estimate later.
Kroft: Mr.
Secretary, you've said in the last week that
there is evidence that the bombings in Saudi
Arabia, the terrorist attacks, were at least
monitored, perhaps controlled, out of
Iran. If we have evidence that the
Iranian government is sheltering al Qaeda
terrorists, does that mean that America would
be justified in taking the same actions in
Iran that we took against the Taliban
government in Afghanistan?
Rumsfeld:
Well, those are decisions not for me.
Those are decisions for the president.
And he went to the Congress on Iraq -- or, on
Afghanistan -- I guess he went to Congress on
Iraq -- he went to the United Nations on
Iraq. What might be decided? It
depends, of course, on people's behavior, but
-- and I just don't have -- I'm not in a
position to respond to a question like
that. It is worrisome that that country
has -- clearly is not being helpful in Iraq
today. It is also clear that they have
permitted senior al Qaeda to operate in their
country. And that is something that is
-- creates a danger to the world, because we
know what the al Qaeda can do in terms of
killing innocent men, women and children.
Kroft: I think
one of the questions on many listeners' mind
and on minds of Americans all over the
country is are we gearing up for a war
against Iran?
Rumsfeld: Not
to my knowledge.
Kroft: Not in
your plans?
Rumsfeld: We
are -- the president is -- sets the policy
for this country. He has set it.
He has indicated that he was hopeful that we
could get Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, and
that the United Nations would be successful
in the inspections regime, and that did not
work out. And as a result, he led a
coalition as he said he would.
In the case of Iran,
he has, as I have, expressed the hope that
they will conduct themselves in a way that
will not be supportive of terrorism, will not
continue to help the Hezbollah and supply
terrorists and terrorist equipment in a way
that causes the loss of innocent life, and
that they will not harbor al Qaeda.
Kroft: We'll
be back with more callers in just a minute.
Live from the Pentagon, this is Infinity
Radio Connect with Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. I'm Steve Kroft, CBS
News. We'll pause briefly now on these
Infinity Broadcasting Stations.
(Pause.)
Kroft: This is
Infinity Radio Connect. We're live at
the Pentagon. Steve Kroft here with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. And on
the line we have Andy from New York, who's
listening on 1010 WINS, New York.
Q: Good
afternoon. Thank you for speaking with
us today, Mr. Secretary.
My question concerns
the state of the economy in Iraq at the
moment. From what we see on television
and in the news, obviously it's not a good
situation, with the looting that we
see. What role will we play, if any, in
helping to, you know, bring back some sort of
economy to the country?
Rumsfeld:
Well, Andy, we're working very hard on
it. And indeed, what you see on
television or read in the press tends to be
the problem areas, not surprisingly.
The north is reasonably stable and
functioning, and the economy is really quite
good, by comparison. In the south, the
situation has been relatively stable.
The biggest problems have been in Baghdad and
then in a few of the cities north of
Baghdad. And what we are doing is we
are working with the coalition countries and
the international community and the Iraqi
people to try to make sure that the basic
services get restarted so that they do have
food, water, and we're working hard to see
that there's reasonable security and that the
police -- numbers of police on the street are
increased, the patrols. And we're
beginning also working hard to try to get the
political process going so that they will
feel they have a stake in the country.
The problem is, as I
mentioned, that there are a lot of people
that were let out of jails that are criminals
and doing bad things. There also are people
from Iran and from the Ba'ath Party and from
leftover remnants of the Saddam Hussein
regime that are out trying to kill coalition
forces, and they're robbing and looting.
Now, I guess if you
think about it, all we can do is what we're
doing, and that is to increase the presence
and to attempt to capture and detain the
people that are breaking the -- breaching the
secure situation there.
Kroft: On the
line, Mr. Secretary, we have Sarah from San
Francisco, who's listening on KCBS.
Go ahead,
Sarah. You're talking to Secretary
Rumsfeld.
Q: Good
afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I had a
question for you about your stance on the
road map for the Middle East peace
plan. You were accused once again, last
night on "Hardball," of being at odds with
the State Department on this issue. And
it was even said that Ariel Sharon has gone
farther than you in calling the occupation
what it is, an occupation. And I've
never heard you say anything against the
president and Secretary Powell's position
over there, and I would just like for you to
make it clear that -- whether or not you
support the plan. Thank you.
Rumsfeld: Oh
-- thank you very much, Sarah. Indeed,
I do, and I have consistently. The
president, in my view, is doing exactly the
right thing. Secretary Powell is doing
the right thing. And I think that it is an
appropriate time for an initiative of this
type. It is not easy; it's
complicated. And it, undoubtedly, will
take some time. But I am hopeful that
it's conceivable that because of what took
place in the region very recently, that there
may be a chance here.
The important thing
that's happened is that Arafat has resisted,
but finally acquiesced in the fact that there
is a prime minister. And the rest of the
world, the neighboring countries, and
increasingly, I think, the Palestinian people
are trying to shift their support towards
that prime minister with the hope that he may
be an effective interlocutor with the
Israelis, and that some process could get
going that could really produce peace
there.
So any suggestion on
any television show or in press that I'm not
supportive of what the president's doing or
what Secretary Powell is doing in the Middle
East is just factually untrue.
Kroft: Live
from the Pentagon, this is Infinity Radio
Connect with Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. I'm Steve Kroft, CBS
News. We're going to pause now briefly
on these Infinity broadcasting stations.
(Announcements.)
Kroft: We're
live from the Pentagon. This is
Infinity Radio Connect. I'm Steve
Kroft. Next to me, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld.
And on the line from
New York City, listening on WCBS, is
Rita.
Go ahead,
Rita. You're talking to Don
Rumsfeld.
Q: (Off mike.)
-- Mr. Secretary, and thank you for taking my
call. I'd like to know what happens to
all those millions and millions of dollars in
gold that was found in and around Baghdad,
and why that money cannot be used to rebuild
Iraq, rather than our hard-earned tax
dollars?
Rumsfeld: Oh,
my goodness, you're so right. We have
concluded that the way to do it is exactly
what you said; that the money that was Iraqi
governmental money and belongs to the Iraqi
people ought to be used to help rebuild
Iraq.
So, too, the assets
that were part of the Iraqi government's
assets outside of Iraq that were frozen by
various countries ought to also be used to
help rebuild Iraq. And third, there are
billions of dollars in the U.N. -- the United
Nations oil-for-food program that also ought
to, and in fact, are now being used to
rebuild Iraq. So, the other sources are
international donors, and we're engaged in
soliciting assistance from other countries,
and a number of countries have stepped up and
are providing assistance. And of
course, the United States has spent already a
good deal in removing that regime. So,
we ought not to be the funder of first
resort, but rather, the funder of last
resort, after all those other sources, as
your question suggested.
Kroft: Mr.
Secretary, what do you consider right now to
be the biggest security threat facing the
United States?
Rumsfeld: I
think that clearly, there are two that are --
one that's quite immediate and the other that
is less immediate, but terribly
dangerous. The first is
terrorism. And free people cannot
defend against every kind of an attack using
every conceivable type of weapon in any
location at any time. We can defend
against a lot. And -- but you cannot
defend against everything, as we know.
So what we have to do is go out and try to
put pressure on those terrorist networks and
stop them before they attack, and that's what
the global war on terrorism is about, and the
president has marshaled a coalition of
something in excess of 100 nations that are
assisting in this process. That is a
very real threat, and I think that the
reality is we're going to have to keep the
pressure on.
Second is the
proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. We live in a world where
in the next five, 10 to 12 years, we could
see a -- oh, another three, four, five, six
nuclear powers in the world, and several of
them could be terrorist states. That is
not a happy prospect. And I personally
believe that it's terribly important for the
United States and the free world to make sure
that our publics understand how serious that
problem is, how dangerous it is, how
dangerous biological weapons are. The
fact that we lost 3,000 people on September
11th, but you could lose 30,000 or 300,000
with a biological weapon or a nuclear
weapon.
And we, as a
community of free nations, are going to have
to take steps to see that that threat doesn't
materialize the way it looks like it will if
you look at a straight-line projection.
Kroft: Do you
think our relations with some of our European
allies have started to improve?
Rumsfeld:
Sure.
Kroft: That's
a short answer. (Laughter.)
Visible signs of it?
Rumsfeld: Oh,
I suppose, sure. I mean, the
president's traveling to Europe, and these
are countries where we have relationships for
many decades.
Kroft: Mr.
Secretary, I want to thank you very much for
taking time out of your busy schedule and
joining us for most of the broadcast,
anyway. And -- that was a joke.
Rumsfeld:
(Groans.)
Kroft:
(Laughs.) This has been Infinity Radio
Connect, with Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld --
Rumsfeld:
(Gestures, makes the sound that indicates
"Cut.")
Kroft: And he
just cut my throat.
Rumsfeld:
(Laughs.)
Kroft: I'm
Steve Kroft, CBS News, in Washington, live at
the Pentagon. Thanks for joining us
today and on many -- many of these Infinity
radio stations across the country.
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