Head of Military Denounces Critics of Iraq Campaign

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, denounced critics of the campaign in Iraq today, declaring that complaints about the handling of the war were misinformed, inaccurate and harmful to American forces in combat.

In perhaps the most dramatic Pentagon news conference in 17 months of briefings on terrorism and war, General Myers rapped on the lectern with a clenched fist and angrily mocked criticism from retired generals and others analyzing the war on television as "great sport here inside the Beltway."

But he reserved his harshest judgments for members of the uniformed officer corps — whether on the battlefield in Iraq, at forward headquarters throughout the region or back home at the Pentagon — whose dissent he said seriously undermined the war effort.

Striking back at the officers who have criticized the war plan and troop deployments, mostly anonymously, General Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they were not "responsible members of the team that put this all together."

"They either weren't there, or they don't know, or they're working another agenda," he said. "It is not helpful to have those kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat."

The criticisms, he said, are "absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it's just harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very bravely, very courageously."

General Myers also reprimanded members of the news media for analyzing, criticizing and reporting anonymous dissent on a secret war plan they had never seen, although Mr. Rumsfeld cut him off with a playful reminder about constitutional protections and a free press.

Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers did not name names when they attacked critics of the plan. Retired generals who have been most outspoken in their criticism of the war plan defended their views, and said the Pentagon appeared to be responding to their concerns by moving additional forces into place in and around Iraq.

A retired officer who has been publicly critical of the war plan, Gen. Barry M. McCaffrey of the Army, shot back at Mr. Rumsfeld in an interview, saying the military was blaming others for its own problems.

"I'm a professor of national security studies, and I know a lot more about fighting than he does," General McCaffrey, who led a mechanized infantry division during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said of Mr. Rumsfeld. "The problem isn't that the V Corps serving officers are commenting or that retired senior officers are commenting on television. The problem is that they chose to attack 250 miles into Iraq with one armored division and no rear-area security and no second front."

General McCaffrey said he resented "the implication that my voice not have a place at the table and that it shouldn't be listened to with some deference based on my experience."

General Myers said, however, that assertions that Mr. Rumsfeld had denied his commanders' requests for more troops were "bogus," and Mr. Rumsfeld said the offensive had made remarkable progress in 12 days.

"So let's be clear," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "This war is well begun, but it is only begun. And while more tough fighting very likely will lie ahead, the outcome is assured. Saddam Hussein will be removed from power, the Iraqi people will be liberated, coalition forces will go home as soon as the military mission is complete and return Iraq to the long-repressed Iraqi people."

The accumulated public questioning of the war prompted Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers to lay out a new defense of the war plan. They bragged of its flexibility, and detailed the ways it had been altered to accommodate diplomatic disappointments — Turkey, for example, denied access to an armored division to open a northern front — and an unexpected intelligence coup that prompted President Bush to order the early opening of the war with a cruise missile attack on a suspected Hussein command compound.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he could not take credit for the plan, which he said was drafted by Gen. Tommy R. Franks and vetted through the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council.

Pressed as to whether he was diminishing his own role in creating the war plan for Iraq, which emphasizes maneuverability and long-range strikes, the hallmarks of the Rumsfeld theory of military transformation, the defense secretary said: "I would be happy to take credit for it, but I can't. It was not my plan, it was General Franks's plan, and it was a plan that evolved over a sustained period of time, which I am convinced is an excellent plan."

He seemed irritated when it was suggested that in saying it was General Franks's plan he was distancing himself from it.

General Myers appeared most upset by criticism from an officer corps after the war plan had been debated, approved and ordered under way. He described the overall plan of the American and British forces as basically sound and flexible enough to be adapted to changing battlefield conditions.

In contrast, he said, the Iraqi commanders are showing themselves unable to keep up while Republican Guard soldiers, Saddam Hussein's elite forces, are pounded by air and on the ground.

General Myers, whose unflappable public face hides a spirited former fighter pilot and current Harley-Davidson enthusiast, gave such an animated defense of the war plan — and of Mr. Rumsfeld — that the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, was asked later if Mr. Bush had personally requested that the general speak out today.

Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers suggested that although individual unit commanders might have accurate views of the campaign at their level, such a perspective is a "snapshot through a soda straw," in a common Pentagon phrase, and not the entire strategic situation at any moment.

The Pentagon has been sensitive since well before the war began to the influence that former senior officers might have in their role as television analysts. Many former officers have been invited to the Pentagon for briefings and talk regularly to Pentagon officials for updates that one retired general said appeared intended in part to keep them from straying too far from the administration's line.

Some journalists at today's briefing said they wondered if the Pentagon was defensive because of genuine problems in the field. But others suspected that today's lecture by General Myers was a sign of confidence.

"It's Washington theater," said John McWethy of ABC News. "I think the reason he became so animated is that things are coming together today in Iraq. A very large ground offensive is beginning, and there's a sense of excitement in this building that I haven't felt for a long time. They're tickled pink to defend the plan everyone has been criticizing because they expect today to be remembered as a historic day."

Whatever the reason for General Myers's passion, reporters agreed it was unprecedented in a general known for being calm, good-natured and unassuming.

"I've never seen him so animated," said Pamela Hess of United Press International, who has been covering the Pentagon for a decade. "Showing that kind of spine does him well. There are people who think that Rumsfeld dominates everyone, including four-stars, so much that no one else can speak his mind from the podium. Myers showing so much passion helps dispel that perception."

This was the best I have ever seen General Myers! It was great when the reporter asked the question of SecDef Rumsfeld and General Myers asked him if he could answer the question. Then he launched! Below is the transcript:

NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense

DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 2 P.M. EST

(Also participating, Gen. Richard B. Myers, Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Slides and photos are at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/g030401-D-6570C.html
.,
http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Apr2003/030401-D-9880W-138.html
and
http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Apr2003/030401-D-9880W-091.html

Rumsfeld: Good afternoon.

We are 12 days into the war. Coalition forces have made
good progress in that still short period of time. To get a sense
of how coalition forces are doing, I think it's useful to put
yourself in Baghdad, in the shoes of those in the Iraqi regime,
and ask "what do you think they're seeing after 12 days of war."
They probably expected it would be much like the first Gulf War.
It seems an awful lot of people in the world expected that it
would be a lot like the first Gulf War.

In that case, as you'll recall, it was a sustained 38-day air
campaign, followed by a brief ground attack. Instead, in
this case, the ground attack actually started before the air
war, with thousands of Special Forces pouring into all regions
of the country and a large force rolling across the Kuwaiti
border into southern Iraq.

Instead of taking several weeks to work their way through the
south up to Baghdad with pitched battles taking place for each
city along the way, coalition forces pressed through southern
Iraq in less than a week. They took a key Iraqi seaport and
secured most of the southern oil fields before the regime could
destroy them and create an environmental disaster. They left
follow-on forces to secure the cities they passed as they raced
to the capital. They are now positioned within some 50 miles of
Baghdad.

The ground invasion was followed a day later by an air
campaign. Day and night coalition air power is degrading Iraq's
command and control with strikes that are powerful, sustained
and precise. The regime is -- has not lost, but is in the
process of losing its ability to effectively communicate with
its forces.

And what about the people of Iraq? In Baghdad, the Iraqi
people are seeing that the coalition forces are striking regime
and leadership targets, and sparing population centers. The
majority of Iraqis do not support Saddam Hussein's regime. Their
obedience is based on fear and that fear is beginning to slip
away as coalition forces advance.

To keep people from welcoming coalition forces, and to
prevent the regular army from surrendering or defecting, the
regime is depending on execution death squads to maintain a
climate of fear. They are vicious, to be sure, but they are now
taking heavy losses, and the regime's tactics have been unable
to slow or stop the coalition.

A growing number of Iraqi intelligence operatives around
the world have been arrested, while others simply ignore their
orders to attack coalition targets, waiting for the Iraqi regime
to collapse.

And where are Iraq's leaders? The night before the
ground war began, coalition forces launched a strike on a
meeting of Iraq's senior command and control and they have not
been heard from since. The fact that Saddam Hussein did not show
up for his televised speech today is interesting.

With each passing day more regime targets are being hit
and more coalition forces are pouring into the country. In the
north, the 173rd Airborne Brigade has now fully deployed.
Coalition aircrews are delivering devastating air attacks on the
Republican Guard divisions that ring Baghdad and Tikrit.
Coalition forces are coming from the north, they're coming from
the south, and they're coming from the west, and the circle is
closing.

The circumstance of the regime is such that Iraqi
officials are spreading rumors that the coalition has entered
into a cease-fire negotiation with the regime, and that there is
a third party peace plan under consideration. Their goal is to
try to convince the people of Iraq that the coalition does not
intend to finish the job. Since this broadcast is sent into
Iraq, let me say this to all Iraqis who are listening: the
regime is not telling the truth, there are no negotiations
taking place with anyone in Saddam Hussein's regime. There will
be no outcome to this war that leaves Saddam Hussein and his
regime in power. Let there be no doubt. His time will end, and
soon. The only thing that the coalition will discuss with this
regime is their unconditional surrender.

So let's be clear. This war is well begun, but it is
only begun. And while more tough fighting very likely will lie
ahead, the outcome is assured. Saddam Hussein will be removed
from power, the Iraqi people will be liberated. Coalition forces
will go home as soon as the military mission is complete and
return Iraq to the long-repressed Iraqi people.

General Myers.

Myers: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

I'd like to express our regrets to the families of the
Iraqis killed yesterday at the checkpoint near An Najaf. Loss of
any innocent life is truly tragic.

Our policy of doing all we can to spare civilian lives
stands in sharp contrast to the Iraqi regime's constant
violations of the international laws of armed conflict and the
Geneva Convention, let alone decent human behavior. The climate
established by the Iraqi regime contributed to this incident.

Operation Iraqi Freedom continues unabated. Coalition
aircraft again flew more than 1,000 sorties over Iraq in the
last 24 hours. The air campaign continues to strike Iraqi
leadership targets in Baghdad and throughout the country, to
include air strikes on Iraqi command, control and communication
facilities as well as air defense sites.

Coalition ground operations are continuing to isolate
and destroy enemy forces throughout Iraq. The Medina, Hammurabi,
Baghdad, and the Al-Nida Republican Guard divisions are
continuously being struck by both our ground and air forces,
significantly degrading their combat capability.

Our forces have fired more than 700 cruise missiles and
dropped more than 9,000 precision-guided munitions since
Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

I have one pre- and post-strike image for you today. The
image is of the former terrorist camp -- training camp at
Khurmal. And I stress "former" since it is no longer an active
terrorist camp. We struck this camp in northeastern Iraq near
the Iranian border early last week with several dozen Tomahawk
missiles and precision air strikes; then we followed by a ground
and air attack conducted over the last couple of days with the
help of Kurdish forces. The camp, in and around the villages of
Gulp and Sargat, was being used by an estimated 3(00) to 500
Ansar al-Islam terrorists, with elements of the al Qaeda network
in there with them. We believe they were developing poisons for
use against civilians in Europe and the United States.

Initial estimates indicate that a significant number of
terrorists were killed in the air and ground operation. Many of
the deceased appear to be non-Iraqis who were members of Ansar
al-Islam, al Qaeda, or perhaps other international terrorist
organizations. Our teams are carefully examining the facilities
to uncover any potential information or evidence that may still
exist following the strikes.

I also have three videos for you today. The first one is
of an F-15 dropping a precision-guided munition on a suspected
SA-2 missile site southwest of Karbala.

The second one is of an AV-8B using a precision-guided
munition to destroy a fuel tank in a revetment between Karbala
and al Kut.

(Referring to videotapes) I think we're catching up. That looks like a fuel tank to me.

And the last video is of an F-16 dropping a
precision-guided munition on a radar site at the Mudaysis
airfield in western Iraq.

And lastly, it helps to remember that the effort to
disarm Iraq and end the current regime is part of the global war
on terrorism. And as we have said since September 11th of 2001,
one of the keys to success is going to be patience. Patience is
the one element of the current plan -- it's one element of the
current plan, and it is paying off more and more dividends as
the days go by.

And with that, we'll take your questions.

Rumsfeld: Charlie?

Q: General -- for General Myers. You just mentioned
patience. Regarding the ground operations south of Baghdad, are
your forces still feeling out or probing the Iraqi Republican
Guard there? Have you begun any serious ground operations to
destroy them?

Myers: There have been serious ground operations and
there have been for some time. They've been conducting, as we
mentioned before, some armed reconnaissance. I think there are
bigger pushes that will be under way as soon as we're ready. Our
-- what we're trying to do with both ground and air forces there
is to decrease the combat capability of the divisions that have
been arrayed south of Baghdad to stop the 1st Marine Division
and the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st [Airborne Division],
from making progress towards Baghdad. And so we're trying to
work on those divisions. We have degraded them to some degree.

Q: (Off mike) -- provide any details on these serious
operations that you referred to -- and the ground operations?

Myers: Well, there are -- well, there -- a lot of these
operations are ongoing. So I mean, the details I'm just not
going to present to you right now. These things are perhaps
under way, will be under way in the near future, and I just
don't want to talk about them.

But there -- if you're getting to the point -- is there
an operational pause? No, there is not an operational pause.
Operations continue.

Q: Mr. Secretary, in your opening statement you
mentioned, of ordinary Iraqis, that their fear is beginning to
slip away. Can you elaborate on that, as to what evidence you
see of that? And is the defeat of the Republican Guard a
necessary step for their fear to disappear?

Rumsfeld: There's a good -- a growing amount of
anecdotal evidence from various parts of the country, in the
North, even in the -- certainly in the -- South, but also in the
West and some places near Baghdad, of individuals indicating
that the -- signs that some of the regime's families are leaving
the country, is rippling through the society and causing morale
to drop on the part of the people who support Saddam Hussein and
for the others, who don't support him, to feel emboldened.

Q: And the Republican Guard -- is that a necessary
step, to take that far enough that the balance will tip, as
you've often said?

Rumsfeld: Probably. It's hard to tell. The Republican
Guard has been taking a pounding for some days now. And some of
the Republican Guard units from up north have been brought down
south to try and reinforce Republican Guard units in the South
that have been badly weakened. That process goes on. They're
being attacked from the air. They're being pressured from the
ground. And in good time, they won't be there.

Q: And then what?

Q: Sir, I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of
the rhetoric that's being used to describe the level of tyranny
and oppression from Saddam Hussein -- from Hussein's regime.

Rumsfeld: Mmm hmm.

Q: Yesterday, from the podium, we were told that once
the Iraqi people were liberated, they would be freed from
"decades and decades of torture and oppression the likes of
which I think the world has not seen before." I think even the
kindest reading of that would say that was a slight
overstatement. I'd like to get your sense of history here in
terms of the Iraq regime, how they stack up against the Third
Reich, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin. Just some perspective here for
us.

Rumsfeld: Well, of course, throughout history, there
have been a large -- regrettably, there have been a large number
of regimes that have been just notably vicious. Certainly, some
of the ones you've mentioned, Stalin ranks high; Adolf Hitler
ranks high.

In terms of the modern period, it seems to me that Iraq
clearly is up towards the top of the list. This is a regime that
has prided itself on eliminating, brutally eliminating any
dissent or opposition. We'll know an awful lot more when we get
on the ground and have a chance to talk to the people and see
more precisely exactly the techniques they've used. But we do --
if you read the various human rights groups and Amnesty
International's description of what they know has gone on, it's
not a happy picture.

Q: Would you agree that that was more of a blanket,
uncategoric statement -- a categoric statement than it should
be.

Rumsfeld: I didn't see the statement.

Yes.

Q: Secretary, I want to ask you once again about
criticism from current and former officers about the flow of
forces to the region and also whether there are sufficient
forces in Iraq. Someone said that there should have been at
least two heavy divisions before you started to fight, and there
are others who criticize you for delaying signing deployment
orders -- they point to the 3rd Armored Cav[alry] Regiment --
and also delaying calling up Guard and Reserve forces, that that
added to some of the problems we're seeing now with lack of
forces on the ground. And there are those that say that you're
too enamored with air power over ground forces. I wonder if you
could just comment on --

Rumsfeld: Well, why don't I --

Myers: Can I comment?

Rumsfeld: (Laughs.) Sure.

Myers: I would love to comment. My view of those
reports -- and since I don't know who you're quoting, who the
individuals are -- is that they're bogus. There is -- I don't
know how they get started, and I don't know how they've been
perpetuated, but it's not been by responsible members of the
team that put this all together. They either weren't there, or
they don't know, or they're working another agenda , and I don't
know what that agenda might be. It is not helpful to have those
kind of comments come out when we've got troops in combat,
because first of all, they're false, they're absolutely wrong,
they bear no resemblance to the truth, and it's just -- it's
just -- harmful to our troops that are out there fighting very
bravely, very courageously.

I've been in this process every step of the way as well.
There is not one thing that General Franks has asked for that he
hasn't gotten on the time line that we could get it to him. And
it wasn't because of a late finding. It might be because we
didn't have a, you know, a ship or something. But, I mean, it's
not -- it's been for mechanical reasons, not because of
administrative reasons, I can guarantee you that. Every member
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed up to this plan and the way
it was executed from the first day, and they'll be signed up to
the last day, because we still think it's a good plan. Every
member of General Franks' component commanders signed up to this
plan as it was changed over time, and as it finally came down to
be the one we went to war with. And they all stood up, and they
gave a thumbs up to the plan.

So there may be others that have other ideas of how we
should have done it. And I -- and, you know, God bless them,
that's a great sport here inside the beltway. And I suppose if I
-- when I retire, I'll probably have my comments, too: Gee, they
ought to have more air power. (Laughter.) I wish the secretary
would say we ought to be more air power-centric, perhaps. But
I've never heard him say that --

Q: (Off mike.)

Myers: No. He hasn't said it. And that's not what he --
that's not -- I'm not going to speak for the secretary, but
that's not the kind of comments that he's been making in this
whole process. So that's -- it's been interesting, but it's not
very useful to this discussion.

You know, we went in there with some very sophisticated
objectives. We had diplomacy underway at the United Nations. We
wanted to deploy a sufficient force, but not the kind of force
that would make it look like diplomacy didn't have a chance to
work. So we had to work that piece. General Franks -- and for
the benefit of our troops -- wanted to protect tactical
surprise. How do you protect tactical surprise when you have
250,000 troops surrounding Iraq on D-day? How do you do that?
Well, you do it by the method he did it: by having the types of
forces -- you do it by starting the ground war first, air war
second. Do you think there was tactical surprise? I think there
was. Do we have the oil fields in the south? About 60 percent of
the oil wealth has been preserved for the Iraqi people. You bet.
Have we had a Scud fired against Jordan or Israel yet? No. Why?
Because we went in very early, even before the ground war, to
secure those places. Do we have humanitarian supplies flowing
into Umm Qasr now? Yes. Why? Because we put the ground forces in
there early. Were we 200 miles inside Iraq in 36 hours? Yes.

Now, as we've talked about, any plan -- you know, we've
just been watching some -- of the few moments I've had, I've
tried to watch a little of the NCAA basketball. I'm sure Roy
Williams, when he puts a plan together to go meet Arizona, he
had a plan and he went to the floor that afternoon and said:
"Okay, we're going to play Arizona, here's our game plan." And I
imagine that plan didn't survive the first five minutes of their
-- and so then he had to start adjusting. Are we going to
adjust? You bet. Are we light on our feet, can we adjust? Yes.
Can they adjust? They try, but it's futile. Okay?

So, I wish we just kind of -- this subject is not
useful. It's not good for our troops and it's not accurate.
You've got to be careful with the sources you use and try to
figure out what they're really trying to say. I will stick by my
statement that this is a great plan and it's one I've signed up
to, it's one all the joint chiefs signed up to, and it's one
we're going to see through to completion.

(Cross talk.)

Q: (Inaudible) -- in the field, and you say it's not
helpful to the troops in the field. Some of the troops in the
field are the ones criticizing the plan.

Myers: General Franks is not criticizing the plan and
he's the one that gets the rows for executing it. And I would
only say this: that there is -- there could be a big difference
in perceptions. And I'll go from the field -- and none of the
perceptions are wrong, but it was like this seminar I was in at
Harvard after the Gulf War. The comment was thrown out at this
seminar, "Gee, the Army division commanders weren't happy with
the air support they got." And I was surprised. So I called my
good friend General -- at the break. I went out, put my quarter
in the machine, called General Horner. And he was down -- I
think commander of Space Command. I said, "General Horner, why
would they say this?"

He says, "Well, it depends on what your perception is.
If you're a division commander, you want all of the air support
you can get. If you're the joint force commander, General
Schwarzkopf, he's going to put the air where he thinks it's
going to do the most good from an operational or strategic view
point. Both views are right. Hey, the division didn't get as
much as they wanted, it went exactly where you wanted it."

So, I think that's a little bit of what you're seeing. I
don't think the perceptions coming from the field are
necessarily wrong. But in terms of the sort of things I was
trying to describe we wanted to accomplish early on, many of
those people probably weren't aware of what we were trying to do
early on.

Rumsfeld: I think also it's useful to put it into some
historical perspective. I don't think there's ever been a war
where there haven't been people opining about this or
speculating about that or second-guessing on something else. As
I say, we're 10 or 11 days into this, and these things have kind
of a rhythm to them, and right now we're hearing all of the
complaints and concerns and questions. One of the ways you can
get a sense of how knowledgeable people are is if somebody says
that they were sent with half of their forces, which I read in
one paper -- fact is, that's just not true. So if the person
believes that, you can think, gosh, if he thinks he was sent
with half his forces -- there hasn't been delays in any major
thing.

Before this started, the president sat down in a secure
video with General Franks and each of the component commanders
before he made a decision to go forward, and he asked them a
couple of questions. He said, "is this war plan a good one and
will it win?" And each single person, every component commander,
they said directly to the president of the United States on
secure video, "absolutely."

Q: Well was --

Rumsfeld: Shh. Just listen. (Laughter.)

Then he said, "Do you have everything you need?" Simple
question. These are adults. They're all four-stars. And they sat
there, and they looked at the president in the eye and said
"absolutely, we've got everything we need."

Now, is it, as General Myers says, perfectly possible
that some person five layers down is short a meal for a day, or
he his communications mixed up with somebody else's? You bet.
This is an enormous process. There's something like -- what? --
260,000 -- 300,000 people involved in this activity, and it is a
monstrous task that they've performed, and they've done it
brilliantly.

And I would -- without getting into the details, just
simply say to the parents of the young people that are over
there fighting for this country, that -- that they are, walking
away, the best trained and the best equipped army on the face of
the earth. They have what they need. They're well led. And this
outcome is assured. They will be victorious. They will win. And
they can be darn proud of them.

Myers: You bet.

Rumsfeld: Notwithstanding these little bits and pieces
that you keep reading in the paper, most of which are by people
who have never seen the war plan, probably never will, until
it's all over.

Q: Mr. Secretary?

Q: Secretary, you've said the forces -- you've said
that there was -- that nothing was going to change about the
force flow to the region, that you were going according to plan,
and that the number and type of forces that were flowing to the
region --

Rumsfeld: I doubt if I said nothing's going to change
in the future. I rarely predict into the future. I would just
defy you to show me a quote like that.

Q: You said that -- I don't have a quote on me, but I
know that you've said that you're going -- you're moving ahead
with the plan and we're on plan. Let me just get my question
out.

In recent days, evidence has been emerging that some
units have been deploying more rapidly to the region than they
had anticipated, than they had been told before; they're going
by air instead of by sea. There are other units that have been
told that they probably will be going in faster. Can you just
characterize the changes that have been made --

Rumsfeld: Sure.

Q: -- to that deployment? Give you a chance to characterize it.

Rumsfeld: Sure. First of all, a plan is like a family
budget. It's something someone sits down and devises, and then
never lives with.

From the opening day, a war plan is -- the process of
adjusting it begins. As everyone says, a war plan doesn't
survive the first day of battle. Why? Because everyone goes to
school on each other, and the plan is open and it's broad and
it's flexible nd it allows for all of those kinds of
adjustments.

Now what kinds of changes have been made? The biggest
and most obvious was the fact that the 4th Infantry Division did
not go in through Turkey. It had to come down around to the
south.

A second big change that was made, is that there was a
very good piece of intelligence, and thanks to the skill of Tom
Franks and his folks they were able to target a leadership
compound before the ground war or air war had begun. And that
was a target of opportunity, and it was seized, and it was
successful, and it was an excellent piece of work.

A third thing that affects everything is, it's not
knowable exactly how long a port will take to unload this ship
or that ship. And so what happens is, they begin the flow of
forces, and to the extent that they find that the port has freed
up, they may accelerate and bring in additional ships. To the
extent they find that those ships are unloading earlier, they
may accelerate the flow of people into the area. And that's
bound to go on. It's going to keep continuing to change various
timetables as we figure out how things are moving and how they
can manage the flow of forces.

But the essential flow of the forces was designed by
General Franks and by John Handy at the TRANSCOM [U.S.
Transportation Command] -- how long ago?

Myers: Well, in January sometime. It was all --

Rumsfeld: And it's been en route, with adjustments probably every day.

Myers: It goes back before then, but I mean, kind of the final iteration --

Q: But aren't you sending in elements of the 2nd LCR (sic) by air? You said --

Myers: There are a few hundred of the 2nd ACR [Armored
Cavalry Regiment] that are going by --

Q: Can you just characterize why they're going? Are
they going to protect supply lines?

Myers: They're going because General Franks wanted that force now.

(Cross talk.)

Q: Mr. Secretary, the reception -- the perceptions that
you're battling here are based on various individuals'
expectations. How can you help us have a realistic expectation
of what kind of casualties and battle deaths will happen in the
future?

Now I know you're going to say it's unknowable, but that
doesn't do much to help the American public get an idea of what
they should be in for. Should the public expect that there might
be several thousand U.S. combat deaths, and then you might hope
that it would be some number significantly less than that? How
can you set that expectation at a realistic level?

Rumsfeld: Well, first, it seems to me that you are --
the construct for your questions suggests that it would well
serve the American people to have some number heaved out there.
And we know from prior history and war after war that anyone who
tries to estimate that is wrong. And they miss -- instead of
serving the public, which I'm sure was well-intentioned, they
misserve the public.

There are so many variables. Will a weapon of mass
destruction be used the closer we get to Baghdad? How long will
it last? What kinds of new things will occur that one has to
adapt and adjust to? And it's not knowable. And I think that
rather than suggesting to the American people that it would be a
service to them to have a number pulled out of midair -- that
would have been -- that's what would happen -- and have this
situation, this war go up on the scoreboard with all -- many
previous conflicts where people tried to do that, and then have
it discovered afterwards, "oh, my goodness, that wasn't a help
to the people, that was a hindrance to the people" -- I wouldn't
even think of doing it.

(Cross people.)

Myers: Hold up. If I could just follow on expectations.
I think what the American people should expect, and the
Australian people, and the British people, that have their sons
and daughters on the front line of this conflict, I think they
should expect that they have everything they need before we
commit them to the battle that they need, whether that's
equipment, whether that's training, whether that's leadership or
whatever it is. And I can assure you that our job is to make
sure they have that. And they should expect that, that they
should not be committed until the odds are distinctly in our
favor. And that's why I mentioned patience earlier in my
remarks.

(Cross talk.)

Rumsfeld: Let me -- let just say one other thing,
Jamie. The other thing is -- we can tell them three other
things. There will be casualties: there already have been, and
there'll be more. I mean, let there be no doubt about it.
They'll receive the best medical care that's possible. I was out
at Walter Reed [Army Hospital] seeing -- gosh, I think eight or
10 who were out there very recently -- Sunday. And they're
getting wonderful care, God bless them. And last, that the
American people will be told the truth as soon as it's possible
to notify the next of kin about a[n] individual who's killed or
wounded. Then the American people will be -- they'll be told
directly what the casualties are. And that, it seems to me, is a
service.

Yes.

Q: Yeah. Last week you all told us that the Republican
Guard were dug in. You've been pounding them now for several
days. Have you managed to pry them into movement, either to take
on American forces or to retreat to Baghdad?

Myers: We haven't seen a retreat. We've seen
dispersals. I think we showed some pictures of them dispersing
into neighborhoods and things like that. We've seen
reinforcements, and we continue to work away at them both from
the ground and from the air.

Q: But still they are basically in defensive positions?

Myers: For the most part I think it's a fair way to
characterize them, although there is some movement. They have
moved -- they have moved some of the units around trying to
reinforce. But some of them have been degraded to pretty low
percentages of combat capability, below 50 percent in, I think,
at least two cases, and we continue to work on them. So, I mean,
it changes.

Q: Those cases meaning two divisions?

Myers: Right.

Q: General, can I follow up on a question, please, on
this? You said that early on that you were hitting these four
Republican Guard divisions by air and ground. You may have
covered this, but can you be a little more explicit? Do you mean
-- by ground, do you mean mechanized patrols? Do you mean
artillery only? Do you mean larger forces? What can you tell us
about the kind of combat?

Myers: Actually, Ivan, I mean all of the above. Everything.

Rumsfeld: Pam?

Q: Could you tell us why the Free Iraqi Forces program
has been suspended? There was so much enthusiasm about that.
There's a release on the desk at the Pentagon.

And also, General Myers, just to clear up what you were
saying about the progress that you've made because of the
surprise of the war plan: Is it your understanding that the
Iraqis were hunkering down waiting for an air war, and so they
weren't reinforcing the oil fields, and that's what made you
guys able to go in there and take them?

Rumsfeld: First, on the Free Iraqi Forces, I didn't
know that the program would be shut down, but it seems perfectly
logical, if it costs money, and the war is already under way and
you're unlikely to train additional forces in time to be
helpful. So it would be logical to discontinue it. The people
that have already been trained are going to be engaged. There
are other Iraqi forces, Free Iraqi Forces, that are engaged, and
that --

Q: We were told to expect several hundred people were
going to go through there, and as far as I know, there's 40 out
there now and maybe another 40 that are going to be sent out.
It's just surprising, considering the extent of briefings we got
and how valuable they were said that they were going to be to
the forces, for humanitarian aid and -- .

Rumsfeld: There are plenty of people who are anxious to
participate and assist in the humanitarian aspects of it. And in
terms of training more people at this stage, it just didn't -- I
am assuming it just didn't --

Q: Is it a money problem or is it a --

Myers: It's not a money problem, it's more of a timing
problem, trying to get the additional forces that we wanted to
get. I think it was just, once the conflict started, it became
-- it became less attractive to move them where we had to move
them.

Rumsfeld: Jim? Did you have your hand up?

Q: Oh, I did, yes.

Rumsfeld: Go ahead. (Laughter.)

Q: Sorry. Has General Franks been given authority to go
into Baghdad to -- you know, when he deems necessary? And if
that's the case, would that be because you would expect the
situation to change so rapidly that it would be better if he had
the authority now rather than have to go back to you or to the
president?

Rumsfeld: I don't know quite what you mean. General
Franks was given the president's decision a week and a half ago
to execute the plan, and he has the authority to execute the
plan. He's not getting daily advice or calibration from General
Myers or me or the president. I don't --

Myers: The president gave him the mission, disarm Iraq
from its WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] and remove the
regime, and that's the task he's about.

Q: Mr. Secretary, I think that last week, you were
asked about reports of an uprising in Basra, and you said you
didn't want to encourage Iraqis to rise up at that point because
this regime was so dangerous. I wonder, where are we now? Would
you now encourage Iraqis to rise up? And if not, what event
might make that logical?

Rumsfeld: That's a good question. We know for a fact
that what happened in 1991, when the Shi'a rose up, tens of
thousands of them were murdered by Saddam Hussein's regime.
There are still a lot of people alive in Iraq that remember
that. And they are properly cautious. And I don't blame them. We
know there are these execution death squads that are in the
city, and they have caches of weapons, and they're killing
people that try to escape and try to defect to assist the UK
forces that are putting pressure on. They're advising the UK
forces of places they could attack from the air, and our
coalition aircraft are doing that. And they're doing a good deal
of damage to these death squads.

It is not for me to decide when these people should rise
up. But I think I mentioned my recollection of Hungary and the
tragedy, where people thought they were going to get assistance,
and it turned out the West was not in a position to assist them,
and they rose up and were slaughtered. And I think that that's a
call that the people in Iraq have to make. They're on the
ground. It's their lives. They'll have to decide when they
believe that their best circumstance is to join the fight as
opposed to preserving their lives as long as they do not see
that immediately they can be free and liberated.

Now, will at some point a large number of the people in
Iraq seek liberation and take steps their own? Yes. There are
people taking steps already -- let there by no doubt -- and
putting their lives at risk. But in terms of a mass uprising,
that's not something I'm going to incite.

Q: Mr. Secretary, a follow-up. Might the defeat of
these Republican Guard divisions that are blocking the way to
Baghdad be that event?

Rumsfeld: Well, it could be. On the other hand, if you
think about it, let's say the Medina Republican Guard element is
destroyed this afternoon, which would be a nice prospect, and
you're in Basra, or you're in some other town, and someone there
has a gun at the head of your family telling you that "If you
try to escape, if you try to assist, we'll kill you. And by the
way, watch us; we'll kill a few other people right now just to
make sure that you understand it." And they just shot a woman
running across a bridge, trying to escape, in the back and threw
her off the bridge into the water.

Now, one size doesn't fit all. You could take out the
Republican Guard division and if somebody's still got a gun to
their head, they're darn well not going to -- very likely -- not
going to decide that it's time to have an uprising. It will
happen; be patient. That country will be freed and liberated and
this will be over. And how it will happen, how it will play out
is going to be a function of the interaction between what they
do and what we do. And if you want to guess which side's going
to do the best, I would say, "bet on the coalition forces."

Yes?

Q: This is a strictly hypothetical question.

Rumsfeld: (Inaudible) -- I thought your arm was Jim's. (Laughter.)

Q: It seemed like you were looking at me -- (laughter) -- (inaudible) -- said Jim.

Given the fact Saddam Hussein is dead, what might
explain, one, the amount of fear that the regime is still able
to inspire in the people --

Rumsfeld: A pistol in someone's hand, shooting people.

Q: But is it word's not gone out that Saddam is dead --

Rumsfeld: I don't know he's dead.

Q: -- or is there possibly a center of gravity in that
regime, apart from the personality of Saddam Hussein himself,
that would make the regime dangerous even after he has
disappeared?

Rumsfeld: I think for a period, if your suggestion is
right that there could be a -- first of all, nobody knows where
Saddam Hussein is, if he's alive or dead or his sons -- I don't
know. But are there other people who are carrying on? Sure. The
Minister of Information and the Minister of Defense and others
are out there on television every day or two pretending that
they're in charge. How is the command and control? My guess is
it's less strong than it would be if Saddam Hussein were visibly
himself on television, which he might be tomorrow, for all I
know. But I think it's time to be patient a little bit and to
just let things play out and not -- we don't need to
hyperventilate about what's taking place. It is a tough
business. Our folks are doing a superb job and we'll know in
good time whether Saddam Hussein's alive or dead.

Yes?

Q: I'd just like to ask you both to follow up on some
earlier points you made. Mr. Secretary, you said, you know,
you're not giving Tommy Franks a day-to-day guidance on
everything and that it's his war plan. But number one for you,
could you help us better understand your management style of
this war on a daily basis? How far do you go down into the
decision making, into understanding the target list of results
each day?

And Mr. Chairman, I hate to take you back to your
initial conversation about the variety of reports in the news
media, but I need to ask you to close that loop. You say it's --

Myers: I thought I did.

Q: Well, not for me, sir. You say it's distinctly
unhelpful. But that suggests that your solution would be people
who disagree shouldn't talk and reporters shouldn't report. And
I guess I'm asking if you really think that's the right
solution.

Myers: I'll take that one on real quick. I think -- I
think for some retired military to opine as aggressively as some
have done is not a -- is not helpful. I mean, it's one thing to
have an opinion; it's another thing to express such
dissatisfaction with, quote, "the plan," that it's just not very
helpful. I mean, when you have troops in combat, as most senior
military would know, that's not the time to start putting, you
know, different opinions, especially from senior people, on the
table, particularly if they are not familiar with the plan. And,
you know, to criticize something that they've never seen is
pretty audacious, isn't it? So that's what I would say.

Q: And what about the news media?

Myers: The news media -- well, I would -- (laughs) -- all you can ever expect --

Rumsfeld: The Constitution.

Myers: No -- (laughter). Well, of course --

Rumsfeld: Don't forget the Constitution.

Myers: Yeah, I have it right here. No, the Constitution -- (laughter).

Q: It's a serious question.

Myers: No -- it is a serious question. And all -- all --

Q: Because you were fairly animated, more animated than
I think I've ever seen you be on this subject.

Myers: I hope so. That's good. What I would -- and I
meant to be, actually, or I wouldn't have been animated.

Q: You should see him when he talks about Kansas basketball.

Myers: Yeah. And I hope you learned something there, Charlie.

But the -- (laughter) -- the reporters just have to be
fair and balanced. And that's all. And I would hope they could
put this in context. You know, when you hear reports from the
field, when you see the sort of straw snapshots we get of the
battlespace, you know, somebody that has a little bit bigger
perspective is useful. And sometimes reporters fill that. But
reporters are going to have to report what they hear and see,
that's --

Q: Are you having second thoughts on the policy of embedment?

Myers: I'm sorry?

Rumsfeld: Let me see if I can respond --

Q: Are you having second thoughts on the policy of embedment?

Rumsfeld: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're finishing. Just a minute.

Q: I'm following up.

Rumsfeld: How can you follow up until the first part's
even answered? (Light laughter.)

The war plan. What happened there was rather natural.
The president asked General Myers and me to provide a war plan
at some moment in history. And we talked to General Franks, and
he pulled off the shelf the Iraqi war plan, which had been there
for some time. And he looked at it, General Myers looked at it,
I looked at it, others looked at it, and all of us agreed that
it was interesting, but it was really ancient -- years old --
and that it didn't reflect any of the lessons from Afghanistan;
that it didn't reflect the current state of affairs in Iraq, and
it didn't take into account the capabilities of the United
States in terms of the shift away from dumb bombs to precision
bombs.

And we all agreed that he should develop a plan that
would be more appropriate. He did. And it was a process that he
then worked through with the chiefs, and he worked through with
the combatant commanders, and he worked through with the
National Security Council, and ultimately ended up with a plan
that is what we believe to be an excellent one. I keep getting
credit for it in the press, but the truth is -- I would be happy
to take credit for it, but I can't. It was not my plan, it was
General Franks' plan, and it was a plan that evolved over a
sustained period of time, which I am convinced is an excellent
plan.

With respect to the day-to-day affairs here, what we do
is Pete Pace and General Myers and Paul Wolfowitz and the chiefs
and I meet with a small group of people every morning, and we
get an intelligence upbrief -- update; we get briefed on a
variety of other things. At some moment, we get briefed by the
folks at the Central Command, generally General Abizaid or
General Franks or one of the other individuals. And they kind of
fill us in on what's taken place. And we go through the subject,
"What can we do to be helpful? Are there things that you need
from this end? Are there things that -- are there pieces of
intel that we may have seen that you may not have seen?" And
that's very rare. They seem to be -- they've got a very good
fusion cell on intelligence there. And then, towards the end of
the day, we get another update. And the war is General Franks'
to fight --

Q: General Myers --

Rumsfeld: -- and he's doing it.

We'll make this the --

Q: You mentioned the Ansar al-Islam strike and the
searches that are going on there. Understanding that it's a huge
facility, can you characterize what has been found so far? And
secondly, can you also characterize the resistance you're seeing
in the North?

Myers: In that particular site, there is no longer any resistance. It's been --

Q: No, I'm sorry. Separately, the resistance for the Iraqi Republican Guard --

Myers: Very little -- very little resistance in the
North so far, and it's probably partially because we have such a
large number of SOF [Special Operations Forces] teams in there,
and now the 173rd [Airborne Brigade]. But the two Republican
Guard divisions that were in the North have both moved south.
The Adnan, you know, moved to Tikrit, and now it's even further
south. And the Nebuchadnezzar has -- I think maybe has a brigade
left in Kirkuk, but two brigades have moved south to join the
defense of Baghdad.

And as far as the examination of things in there, we
don't have anything current right now. We just aren't -- we
haven't got reporting on that yet.

Q: Mr. Secretary, are you distancing yourself from the
plans? You know, every time you say --

Rumsfeld: Oh, let me answer that. I'd love to.

Q: -- every time you say, "You know, it's not my plan;
I'd like to take credit for it," the people around you are
saying, "See? He is distancing himself."

Rumsfeld: Not at all. As I said, I think it is a superb plan. I was involved --

Q: But -- (off mike) -- with your philosophy and didn't
your philosophy have a lot to do with how this came out?

Rumsfeld: Goodness, gracious! You know, it's like
having a process that goes on for five or six months, with a lot
of people in the room, people all talking, discussing, asking
questions. I mostly ask questions. I --

Q: But you're the boss, though.

Rumsfeld: Well, I'm the boss, but I'm not the person who designs war plans.

Myers: And it changed. I mean, it changed in the last
couple of months dramatically. I mean, this was complete -- I
mean, it was changed a lot in the last --

Rumsfeld: And nobody should go out of here with any
idea that I or anyone else are distancing themselves from that
plan, because I am not. I think it is an excellent plan. I think
Tom Franks is doing a superb job.

The truth of the matter is, however, it was a long,
iterative process, and trying to take something that complex and
that detailed and reach into it and say, "Gee, that was Dick
Myers' idea," or "That was Pete Pace's idea," or "That was
Rumsfeld" -- the reality is that the task was Tom Franks'. He
did superbly, and he has then gotten us to all agree to it.
Sure. Did we have a voice in it? Did we have a part in
fashioning it? You bet.

Q: Well, we kept hearing that you kept sending the plan
back -- wasn't imaginative enough --

Rumsfeld: You say keep hearing things. It's the same
thing like we cut the force in half. The fact that one person
prints it, and then everyone else runs around and copycats it
and writes it again -- then pretty soon it's been printed 16
times, and everyone says, "Well, it must be true." That's
nonsense.

I'll tell you, I told you earlier today what plan was
sent back. And it wasn't ever sent back. It was pulled off the
shelf. It was old and stale. It was looked at by everyone who
looked at it and said, "No way! That's not going to work. Let's
do one."

So Tom Franks --

Q: (Off mike) --get his way in the end? Did he get exactly what he wanted out of it?

Rumsfeld: He seems to tell the president and me and
Dick Myers that he thinks this is the plan he wants. And we have
agreed to it. And we participated in it. And we like it. And no
one's backing away from anything. And the fact that people have
been writing this stuff over and over and over again and
misinforming the world is really not terribly important. What's
important is what we've said and that we're winning this
activity, and it is going to end, and it will end with Saddam
Hussein gone.

(Cross talk.)

Q Do the generals that work for you feel comfortable
giving their honest assessment? Could you describe the situation
where you've gone around and asked each general? And are you
confident that they're not at all intimidated or that they don't
want to be seen as part of the team, that they're giving you
their honest assessment and that they gave it to you?

Myers: They'd be shirking their duty if they stand up
in the United States military uniform and they don't say what
they think, in front of General Franks, the secretary, or the
commander in chief. That's their obligation. That's all our
obligation. And that's the secretary's obligation. He takes the
same oath.

Q Would you be happier if these retired generals were not on CNN and -- (off mike)?

Myers: No comment. But Pam, your -- (laughter).

Rumsfeld: (Laughing.) Some of them are pretty good.

Myers: Some of them are darn good.

Pam, didn't you talk -- you talked about the Free Iraqi Forces?

Q: Yes.

Myers: Let me just mention one thing that we have --
Hungary was a great supporter in enabling us to have a place to
train the Free Iraqi Forces, and we've got to thank them.

Q General Myers --

Rumsfeld: Thank you very much.

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