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CBS: Mr. Secretary! Mr. Secretary! Aren't you worried about reports that Apache helicopters unnecessarily strafed hundreds of retreating Republican Guard battalions that were in essence trying to surrender? And the follow up, sir: Isn't it true that literally thousands of Republican Guard regiments were allowed to flee unmolested into Syria — and now amount to a potentially dangerous counterrevolutionary force right on the border of a liberated Iraq? NBC: Secretary Rumsfeld. In retrospect, was playing hardball with the Turks and not paying the billions a mistake — one that cost us unneeded casualties by fighting a one-front war and allowing them an open hand in Kurdistan? And a point of clarification too: While it looks like a "win" here in Iraq, aren't you worried that the United States has simply paid too much money in debt relief to countries in the region — specifically Turkey — to buy their allegiance without monitoring them as they unilaterally go into Iraq? BBC: Point of clarification, please, Mr. Secretary: Had the F-17s only hit the electrical grid on the first night of bombing, Saddam's final orders would not have been carried out and dozens of Allied soldiers would have been saved. True? And, please, one follow-up question: Given that we were trying to liberate, not conquer, Iraq, don't you think that the bombing of infrastructure unnecessarily caused pain and suffering for what is really an innocent Iraqi citizenry? Weren't they victimized twice? Le Monde: Minister Rumsfeld, sir: Are Americans aware that the use of indigenous Iraqi dissidents and guerrillas explains the extraordinarily light casualties of your armed forces? And if I may add: Isn't this Afghanistan all over again? Only your fear of body bags explains the flight of so many of Saddam's men into Syria — too few Yankee boots on the ground, yes, Mr. Rumsfeld? The Manchester Guardian: I would like you — right now, Secretary Rumsfeld — to comment on reports that American troops are poised to go into Iran or Syria. Wasn't this invasion really a preplanned stepping-stone for a radical American realignment of the Middle East? Would you allow me a follow-up as well? Is the United States prepared to sit idly by while patriotic Iranians are being slaughtered in the streets of Tehran by a dictatorial government with close ties to international terrorism? CNN: Secretary Rumsfeld, sir: Do you think the failure to retaliate for the sarin-laden Scud that landed in Kuwait will constitute a dangerous precedent — an American willingness, if you will, to suffer the use of WMDs without retaliation? Please, a follow-up as well: Do you consider the blockbuster bombing of the Tikrit barracks an unnecessarily brutal response to a relatively minor chemical attack? The New York Times: Surely you are aware, Mr. Rumsfeld, of reports that members of the Baathist party — some with clear responsibility for mass murders — are right now still living in impunity in Baghdad? And a follow-up as well: Are you worried of reports of horrific reprisals, in which American troops have stood by while members of the Baathist party were publicly lynched? ABC: Mr. Rumsfeld! Mr. Rumsfeld! After all the prewar American inspection pressure on Iraq, were you surprised to find so far only 2 chemical weapons depots near Basra? And, if I may pose the follow-up, please: Don't you think the presence of 3 tons of chemical weapons there caught the 101st off guard? AP: Mr. Secretary: Were you surprised by the mass Iraqi defections in support of American troops in the outlying cities? A follow-up, please: Do the pockets of resistance in Baghdad suggest that Saddam had more popular support than we had anticipated? Have we then toppled a popular leader? Reuters: Secretary Rumsfeld: Don't you think that the Iraqi blowing up of a Euphrates dam will tend to validate your earlier American warnings that Saddam felt no compunction in killing his own people? And may I have a follow up as well? Do you feel the U.S. should be considered culpable for triggering mass flooding that would have not occurred had we not invaded Iraq? Al-Jazeera: Mr. Secretary: Can we expect Americans to follow up on their promises to the Iraqi people to stay and to guarantee a democratic society? And you owe me a follow-up, please: How long will Americans interfere in Arab politics and insist on foreign solutions to domestic problems? Al-Hayat: Secretary Rumsfeld, sir: Doesn't the fact that oil prices have nose-dived in the months after the invasion prove that the United States sought to undermine OPEC and use the invasion to obtain cheap oil? I wish to follow-up as well: With 100 burning oil fields, isn't it true the United States bears some responsibility for the uncertainty about future petroleum prices? Why will we soon hear such irrational, contradictory questioning — a sort of fantasy circus where Will Kane takes passive-aggressive inquiries from Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer? War against a murdering fascist has by now become fully postmodern — a surreal experience whose strangeness transcends even the new weapons, tactics, and operational protocol involved. In our therapeutic, global culture the demands upon the United States military are now legion and incongruous, going well beyond preparing for chemical and biological attacks. To understand this war, better to have a cynical Letterman — not an Edward R. Murrow — reporting it. In hour one of the conflict, we are supposed to expect to see the deployment of weapons of mass destruction — which many in the world community still profess are not there. If the Iraqis use these agents of death, we are culpable for prompting such dangers; if they don't, then there was no real casus belli in the first place and the war will be deemed, post facto, as unnecessary. Americans must be swift, decisive, and victorious in their warmaking — but not to the extent that they should kill too many of the enemy. Our GPS bombs must not just be smart, but rather brilliant — and thus distinguish and target (wounding rather than killing) only 80,000 individual Baathists and Saddamites within a population of 26 million. We should not lose American soldiers abroad; but, to be fair, we should at least suffer a few dead (preferably white, male, older, and officers) to avoid criticism about the "body bag" syndrome, in which, as in Kosovo and Afghanistan, Americans kill without being killed — and thus appear too much the overdog for the postcolonial guilt of Europeans or the tastes of the "Harper's Index." We expect that Saddam might well blow up oil wells, gas innocents, foul the seas, hit Israel, and worse; but the responsibility will be ours, not his, inasmuch as we expect mass killing from him but demand its instant prevention from us. There is a Potemkin phoniness to this war to come. We live in a world of images broadcast immediately into our living rooms without commentary — or, indeed, any intellectual context at all. Thus, because a Tariq Aziz — a really murderous, awful man — can get on a plane to the Vatican without his holster, he looks to the ignorant as if he were a jet-setting, press-conference-convening statesman like Tony Blair. Dan Rather sits across from a mass murderer in a Western tie and suit and questions the tyrant as if he is interviewing the head of the local school board. Text, image, and rhetoric — not the deeds themselves — become reality. Had Mr. Bush, Clinton-like, only bit his lip, apologized to various peoples, talked of "multilateralism," and spun his southern drawl to sound more like the Joads than Sam Houston, then he too might have bombed a thug (in Europe, no less) for two months without congressional, U.N., or Cameroon's approval. Even ANSWER and "Not in Our Name" would have felt his pain and thus stayed home. So war now belongs to the realm of postmodern thinking, a world where a grim Pericles must convince not the Athenian assembly, but the slouching guests at Trimalchio's banquet. There is no absolute good or bad, only the suspiciously powerful and the nobly impotent. Intention and exegesis are everything, action nothing. Meeting and defeating evil is considered judgmental and arbitrary — and thus hopelessly simplistic; soldiers must be social workers who feed and nurture victims, rather than those caricatured, retrograde avengers from our more primitive past. The beneficence of peace means twelve years and 300,000 air sorties over two-thirds of the airspace of a country enslaved in tyranny; the evil of war means the liberation of millions from a psychopath hoarding frightful weapons. Just as we stay cool in summer and warm in winter and surf 360 channels effortlessly, so too do we expect our military to not only work, but make us feel good and comfortable in the process. In this present age of cynicism and nihilism, above all we demand utopian perfection: An operation that is only 75 percent positive in its results is worse than inaction, and to be condemned as proof of either ignorance or guile. Yet unlike most of our cultural elite, our military operates on tragic principles — a few men and women still who accept the world's imperfections; who have confidence that while their culture may not be perfect, it is better than the alternative; who hate war, but are willing to make horrific sacrifices for ideas and values for which they make no apology; who believe that, as a last resort, muscle and action alone give morality to thought and talk. But the problem is that those fighting for us are no longer symbolic of our culture at large, but rather artifacts of an age gone by. And so we can expect to see some pretty interesting press conferences in the weeks ahead — when the world of High Noon meets that of Seinfeld. |
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Rumsfeld: I will take your questions now.
