The Unknown Known: Errol Morris' New Doc Tackles Unrepentant Iraq War Architect Donald Rumsfeld — Transcript

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1. 0:05why Donald rumel why did you choose him
2. 0:08to be your subject of this
3. 0:10F things take on a logic of their own I
4. 0:14had made the fog of War about Robert S
5. 0:19mamera
6. 0:21um a central figure for me as a Young
7. 0:26Man uh because of the war in Vietnam
8. 0:31one of the great disasters in American
9. 0:36history and I made the movie because of
10. 0:39questions about that
11. 0:42war how did we get into such an
12. 0:46incredible
13. 0:47mess
14. 0:49um 58,000 American soldiers
15. 0:53dead millions of people in Southeast
16. 0:57Asia
17. 0:58dead
18. 1:02call it the salt and pepper shakers
19. 1:04where the book ends but another disas
20. 1:08War another Secretary of
21. 1:11Defense and I decided that I wanted to
22. 1:14do it
23. 1:14again also I'd made a movie about Abu
24. 1:19gra so there are a whole number
25. 1:23of issues which are of great interest to
26. 1:27me but the interesting is mcnamar was
27. 1:30sort of The Reluctant War manger whereas
28. 1:33ronfeld in your film is so certain about
29. 1:36everything that he does uh how did you
30. 1:38first get him to agree to sit down not
31. 1:41just for an hour two hours for 33 hours
32. 1:45of interviews uh and to reveal so much
33. 1:49uh about his own thoughts to
34. 1:52you the simplest answer is cuz he wanted
35. 1:57to he wanted wanted to explain himself
36. 2:01he wanted to provide an account of what
37. 2:03he had done very early on our first
38. 2:07meeting did he call you or you call him
39. 2:10I called
40. 2:11him um I sent him a copy of the fog of
41. 2:14war and a letter and I was told by his
42. 2:17lawyer Bob Barnett that he would never
43. 2:20ever ever speak to me said forget about
44. 2:23it this is never going to happen but he
45. 2:26did call me I went to Washington we met
46. 2:30and this film is the
47. 2:34result in that trailer we just played
48. 2:38um he talked about the possibility of
49. 2:41having become president how would that
50. 2:44have happened could have happened in a
51. 2:45whole number of different
52. 2:48ways uh he was extraordinarily
53. 2:51successful at a very young
54. 2:53age uh four-term congressman from
55. 2:56Illinois and then a whole number of
56. 2:59cabin cinet level
57. 3:01appointments in the Nixon Administration
58. 3:04he was the youngest Secretary of
59. 3:06Secretary of Defense in the history of
60. 3:07the country eventually in the Ford
61. 3:10Administration one of the youngest
62. 3:12Chiefs of Staff if not the
63. 3:14youngest uh before his assistant Richard
64. 3:18Cheney took his place uh and then the
65. 3:21youngest Secretary of Defense he has
66. 3:23that distinction of being the youngest
67. 3:26and the oldest Secretary of Defense
68. 3:30first time around for fora and of course
69. 3:33second time around for George W bush he
70. 3:36wrote like
71. 3:3720,000
72. 3:39memos they were called snowflakes
73. 3:41because there were so many of them
74. 3:43probably more on white paper probably
75. 3:46more than
76. 3:4820,000 I want to turn back to the film
77. 3:51unknown how about a lot we'll call them
78. 3:53he wrote a lot Donald Rumsfeld talking
79. 3:57about those memos that he wrote on Iraq
80. 4:01if you look at the range of my memos
81. 4:04there might be 1/1 of 1% about Iraq the
82. 4:08reason I was concerned about Iraq is
83. 4:09because fourstar generals would come to
84. 4:11me and say Mr secretary we have a
85. 4:15problem our orders are to fly over the
86. 4:18northern part of Iraq and the southern
87. 4:20part of Iraq on a daily basis with the
88. 4:23Brits and we are getting shot at at some
89. 4:26moment could be tomorrow could be next
90. 4:29month could be next year one of our
91. 4:31planes is going to be shot down and our
92. 4:33pilots and crews are going to be killed
93. 4:36or they're going to be captured the
94. 4:38question will be what in the world were
95. 4:41we flying those flights for what was the
96. 4:43cost benefit ratio what was our country
97. 4:46gaining so you sit down and you say I
98. 4:48think I'm going to see if I can get the
99. 4:50president's attention remind him that
100. 4:52our planes are being shot at remind him
101. 4:54that we don't have a fresh policy for
102. 4:57Iraq and remind him that we've got a
103. 4:59whole range of
104. 5:01options not an obsession a very measured
105. 5:05nuanced
106. 5:18approach