Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld leaves office Friday, Dec. 15 after six
turbulent years of rebuilding the military for a post-Cold War era, while
simultaneously overseeing service members he calls, "the best led, the best
equipped, the best trained, the most capable -- in the world." As we met in
his office on the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was
reflective about the past and worried about the future.
Full Transcript
Rumsfeld regrets using the phrase "the war on terror": "I say that because
the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It
creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60
minutes (like) a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way."
It's not a war on terror, he adds, because "Terror is a weapon of choice for
extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group
of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control."
Rumsfeld believes much of the public still does not understand the intensity
of the struggle. He says he hasn't read the entire Iraq Study Group Report,
just the summary and news accounts, but has this take on the conflict: "I
personally believe that the consequences of allowing the situation in Iraq
to be turned over to terrorists would be so severe -- because Iraq would
become a haven to plan attacks on the moderate countries in the region and
the United States. (It would) diminish the ability of the United States to
provide protection for the American people."
Many commentators have tried to compare this war with World War II, or
Vietnam. Rumsfeld, however, prefers the Cold War comparison because, like
the Cold War "which lasted 50 years, you couldn't say (in the middle of it)
whether you were winning or losing. There aren't straight and smooth paths.
There are bumpy roads. It's difficult. The enemy has a brain. They're
constantly making adjustments."
About opposition, Rumsfeld recalled a time, "when Euro-communism was in
vogue and people were demonstrating by the millions against the United
States, not against the Soviet Union. And yet, over time, people found the
will - both political parties and Western European countries - to persist in
a way that ultimately led to victory."
Rumsfeld's implication is clear: the same leftists who opposed U.S. strategy
in standing against communism now stand in opposition to America's position
against Islamofascism. If they were wrong about communism, might they also
be wrong about today's enemy?