Donald Rumsfeld: Full Interview — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01don rumsfeld you were secretary of
2. 0:02defense on 9 11. you were sitting at
3. 0:05your desk in the pentagon and then it
4. 0:07happened how did you find out about it
5. 0:09well
6. 0:10the first thing that happened was i was
7. 0:13meeting with some congressmen explaining
8. 0:15why we needed to increase the defense
9. 0:17budget
10. 0:18and that the world was still a dangerous
11. 0:20place and we couldn't simply relax
12. 0:23and uh the senior military assistant
13. 0:26came in and said a plane just hit the
14. 0:27world trade center and so it was
15. 0:29obviously an accident
16. 0:31and then shortly thereafter they left
17. 0:34and he came in and said a second plane
18. 0:36is hit so it clearly was not an accident
19. 0:39and i was with my c.i.a briefer in my
20. 0:42office and and the building shook at the
21. 0:44pentagon and
22. 0:46we had been hit and i didn't know if it
23. 0:48was a bomb or an airplane or what
24. 0:51so i went out of my office and ran down
25. 0:53the hall until the smoke was so bad that
26. 0:55you couldn't get any further and went
27. 0:57downstairs and outside and
28. 0:59there on the apron outside the pentagon
29. 1:02where there were just
30. 1:03thousands of pieces of metal small
31. 1:06pieces not big chunks of an airplane
32. 1:09i ran into a lieutenant colonel in the
33. 1:11air force and he told me that he'd seen
34. 1:13the plane hit the pentagon so that that
35. 1:15registered on me and by then some first
36. 1:18responders were coming
37. 1:20and i went back up in my office and
38. 1:22talked started talking to people about
39. 1:24what meant well i mean
40. 1:26if i remember you actually helped uh
41. 1:28some of the first responders to get
42. 1:30people onto gurney well at that point
43. 1:32the first responders hadn't gotten there
44. 1:34these were just people from the pentagon
45. 1:36who came out and started helping and
46. 1:38bringing people out of the burning
47. 1:40building and the flames were leaping up
48. 1:42in the smoke and and at that moment i
49. 1:44just gave somebody a hand and and then
50. 1:47when the first responders did come in i
51. 1:49went back to my office and got about my
52. 1:51business
53. 1:53i thought one of the more interesting
54. 1:55things is you did not close down the
55. 1:57pentagon that day why was that
56. 2:00it was clear they had hit the seat of
57. 2:03economic power in new york and the seat
58. 2:06of military power of the united states
59. 2:08in washington
60. 2:10and another plane of course was probably
61. 2:13going to try to hit the seat of
62. 2:14political power in the white house or
63. 2:16the congress
64. 2:17and i just made a decision that when the
65. 2:19fire marshal said evacuate the building
66. 2:21i said no get the non-essential
67. 2:23personnel out of there and and we'll
68. 2:25leave it open i didn't want to
69. 2:28i didn't want the world to think that a
70. 2:31group of terrorists could shut down the
71. 2:32u.s department of defense what was the
72. 2:35hardest part of it for you that day in
73. 2:37the secretary
74. 2:39well the
75. 2:41i got a call
76. 2:43the hardest part of course was was when
77. 2:45the plane was hit and we saw people
78. 2:47people in the pentagon family civilians
79. 2:50and military
80. 2:52who were being brought out burned and
81. 2:55dead and
82. 2:56uh wounded
83. 2:58the
84. 3:00george tenet called me
85. 3:01in the morning and said he'd confirmed
86. 3:04that it was al-qaeda and osama bin laden
87. 3:06and at that point the president called
88. 3:08and said look it's going to come to you
89. 3:11and you should begin getting your people
90. 3:13thinking through
91. 3:14what we do next and
92. 3:16and uh
93. 3:18the hardest part was there was no road
94. 3:20map there was no guidebook there was no
95. 3:22no war plan on the shelf that uh the
96. 3:25pentagon had fought through this is what
97. 3:27you do and of course the department of
98. 3:29defense
99. 3:30was organized and trained and equipped
100. 3:32to deal with external threats and this
101. 3:34was a threat from inside the united
102. 3:36states
103. 3:36masterminded outside to be sure but it
104. 3:39was more the the state and local
105. 3:41government's responsibility and the
106. 3:43fbi's
107. 3:45so we had to begin to think through what
108. 3:47we would do about it and the president
109. 3:49was very decisive he said immediately
110. 3:51we're not going to pound sand we're not
111. 3:52going to simply
112. 3:54indict some people in absentia and and
113. 3:59fire off a few cruise missiles
114. 4:01we're going to deal with this problem
115. 4:03before something this bad or something
116. 4:06worse happens to the american people and
117. 4:08we're going to find ways to to protect
118. 4:10them
119. 4:11do you think
120. 4:12in retrospect
121. 4:14that it was an overreaction that day
122. 4:17well i don't at all i think it was a
123. 4:19measured reaction uh
124. 4:21you you begin thinking it through and
125. 4:24and what was clear is that a free people
126. 4:27uh we are vulnerable because we want to
127. 4:30be able to go where we want and say what
128. 4:32we want and and uh
129. 4:34and that a terrorist can attack any time
130. 4:36any place using any technique and it
131. 4:38instead of 3000 it could have been 300
132. 4:40000 with a chemical or a biological
133. 4:42weapon so the president was was right to
134. 4:45say that the goal is not to retaliate
135. 4:48or it's not retribution the goal is to
136. 4:50protect the american people and the only
137. 4:52way to do that was to put pressure on
138. 4:54terrorists around the world
139. 4:56and make everything they do harder it's
140. 4:58been 10 years and we're still in iraq
141. 5:01we're still in afghanistan at at that
142. 5:04point and in the days after that did you
143. 5:08think that it would go on this long no i
144. 5:10i i certainly didn't i
145. 5:13of course i've i also said and believed
146. 5:15that no one can estimate the length of
147. 5:17something like this or the number of
148. 5:19people that will be involved or the cost
149. 5:22you can't predict that it never has been
150. 5:24possible
151. 5:26um you know on the other hand we had
152. 5:27troops in germany for years afterwards
153. 5:30and in japan
154. 5:31the the
155. 5:33length of it is
156. 5:35when you compare with world war one or
157. 5:37world war ii or korea or vietnam you get
158. 5:40one comparison if you compare it with a
159. 5:42cold war and it's much more like the
160. 5:44cold war which lasted decades where you
161. 5:46simply have to
162. 5:48be strong and and provide a deterrent
163. 5:50and and make everything that the
164. 5:52terrorists want to do more difficult for
165. 5:54them
166. 5:55do you think we've defeated them no i
167. 5:58think that that it's a competition of
168. 6:00ideas it took decades to to defeat
169. 6:03communism uh and to persuade people that
170. 6:06that system didn't work and our system
171. 6:08does and provides opportunities free
172. 6:10systems but there are still radical
173. 6:12islamists out there that are training
174. 6:15young people in in radical madrasas
175. 6:18to
176. 6:19strap on suicide
177. 6:21belts and go out and kill innocent men
178. 6:23women and children i i never would have
179. 6:25imagined that the united states could
180. 6:27have gone a decade without a successful
181. 6:29major attack here but there have been a
182. 6:32lot of attempts and they've been
183. 6:34thwarted and there have been successful
184. 6:35attacks in other countries do you think
185. 6:37we're safer today than we were then oh
186. 6:40unquestionably
187. 6:41no question where the the structures
188. 6:43that have been put in place and the
189. 6:45coalition that was formed of 90
190. 6:47countries to share intelligence and
191. 6:49share information on bank accounts and
192. 6:51and to cooperate to prevent the
193. 6:53proliferation of of weapons lethal
194. 6:56weapons
195. 6:57uh i think all of that has contributed
196. 6:59to our safety and the safety of other
197. 7:01countries
198. 7:03can i ask you a couple of questions
199. 7:05about dick cheney's book
200. 7:08colin powell came on face the nation and
201. 7:10said it was just filled with cheap shots
202. 7:13and i wondered uh what do you think of
203. 7:16it well i've i've read half of it and
204. 7:19i've not read the last half yet i'm
205. 7:21about
206. 7:22halfway through
207. 7:23uh i know dick cheney well and and he
208. 7:26does not the kind of person who does
209. 7:28cheap shots and
210. 7:30i think that the narrative that was out
211. 7:32there that basically was written by
212. 7:34people who weren't there weren't on the
213. 7:36inside uh is is different from the one
214. 7:40that the vice president cheney saw
215. 7:43you were just saying you're you're into
216. 7:44the part about uh and i haven't read it
217. 7:46yet but i'm looking forward to doing it
218. 7:48and i've got a lot of respect for dick
219. 7:50cheney and i'm sure what he wrote is is
220. 7:52exactly what he saw
221. 7:53you know there was a lot of talk when
222. 7:56when the security team was put together
223. 7:58it was a dream team you
224. 8:00uh dick cheney uh colin powell
225. 8:03but
226. 8:03from the tone of this book it was a lot
227. 8:05of just infighting from the beginning do
228. 8:08you think that slowed down the war on
229. 8:10terror no i don't i don't think it was
230. 8:12any different than any other
231. 8:14administration if you think of the
232. 8:15difficulties between brzezinski and
233. 8:17vance and schultz and weinberger and
234. 8:20kissinger and rogers i mean there's a
235. 8:23natural
236. 8:24difference in perspective that comes
237. 8:26from running these large institutions
238. 8:29and i've been involved in the national
239. 8:32security councils of several presidents
240. 8:34and
241. 8:34i don't i didn't notice any difference
242. 8:36in terms of of that issue i think when
243. 8:39people sit down and write about it
244. 8:41someone who wasn't there and isn't
245. 8:43familiar but our relationships were
246. 8:44always professional and uh
247. 8:48i think that would not be the case
248. 8:50what are the things i mean i'm sure
249. 8:52there are some things you would have
250. 8:53done differently i mean i can't imagine
251. 8:55any understood that people don't think
252. 8:57well we should have done this when we
253. 8:59didn't do that what are the things that
254. 9:01if you could do it over
255. 9:02to make it absolutely perfect what would
256. 9:04you have done differently
257. 9:06the thing where we i think fell
258. 9:09way short
259. 9:10was in understanding that
260. 9:13this is not something that's going to be
261. 9:15solved with bullets
262. 9:17it's something that'll take all elements
263. 9:19of our country competing with the ideas
264. 9:22of the radical islamists
265. 9:24and we have no idea even to this day the
266. 9:26numbers of
267. 9:28suicide bombers being recruited and
268. 9:30trained
269. 9:31we don't know we don't have excellent
270. 9:34information on their finances
271. 9:36and until we are able to to engage the
272. 9:39world and our country not with military
273. 9:43side
274. 9:44in in competing against the ideas of the
275. 9:47radical islamists and the terrorists and
276. 9:49the people who fund the terrorists and
277. 9:50the people who are hospitable to the
278. 9:52terrorists until we're able to compete
279. 9:54with that as we did in the cold war and
280. 9:56in against communism and in favor of
281. 9:58free political systems and free economic
282. 10:01systems
283. 10:02we won't know how long it'll last or
284. 10:04what the outcome will be do you think
285. 10:07that the financial
286. 10:09condition of the united states right now
287. 10:11is changing our role on the world stage
288. 10:14as far as being
289. 10:16the power that can go in and do things
290. 10:18like going to iraq going to afghanistan
291. 10:21can we afford that anymore
292. 10:24bob when i went to washington and the
293. 10:26eisenhower administration and left the
294. 10:28navy
295. 10:30and during my congressional period with
296. 10:32lyndon johnson and john f kennedy we
297. 10:35were spending 10 of our gdp on on
298. 10:38defense
299. 10:39today we're spending 4 plus or minus
300. 10:42depending on how you calculate it
301. 10:44we clearly can afford to defend the
302. 10:46american people we clearly can afford to
303. 10:49make the investments the the deficit and
304. 10:52the debt is crushing
305. 10:54but it was not caused by the defense
306. 10:56department it's clearly the entitlements
307. 10:58anyone can looks at the data knows it's
308. 11:00the the biggest risk we face is that
309. 11:03people will use that argument oh we
310. 11:05can't afford this and then pull back
311. 11:08again on our intelligence capability and
312. 11:10our defense capabilities and end up
313. 11:13creating a weakness that provokes people
314. 11:15into doing things they otherwise
315. 11:16wouldn't even think of doing
316. 11:19we need to go after the debt we need to
317. 11:21go after the entitlements the things
318. 11:23that are causing that debt and we would
319. 11:25make a terrible mistake if we thought we
320. 11:27could balance the trillions of dollars
321. 11:29of debt that have been incurred by this
322. 11:30administration if we could balance the
323. 11:32budget off the defense department
324. 11:34because we can't we're already spending
325. 11:36a relatively small portion of our gdp on
326. 11:39defense when you wake up on 9 11 what
327. 11:42will you be thinking about
328. 11:44oh i'll be thinking of remembering the
329. 11:46people that died and their families and
330. 11:48friends and
331. 11:49and the wonderful young men and women
332. 11:51who volunteered to serve our country and
333. 11:54go wherever the president decides they
334. 11:56should go and and do it with such
335. 11:58patriotism and such courage and
336. 12:00sacrifice
337. 12:15you