He was answering a question brought to him by Russ Babage:
Q: Mr. Secretary, you mentioned in your presentation from the campaign against global terrorism the importance of preventing a new generation of recruits flowing to the terrorist cause. I wonder if you’re satisfied with the strategy to defeat the national terrorism, is it in fact sufficiently coherent and coordinated to win? In particular, are you satisfied that the coalition’s political warfare operations have gained sufficient traction to prevent new recruits from signing up to the terrorist cause?
Rumsfeld: I’m certain we have not been successful. As the Prime Minister, I forgot whether he mentioned it in his remarks or at the dinner table, but clearly, if the schools that are teaching young folks are teaching them terrorism and suicide bombing and hatred instead of mathematics or science or language or things that can help them become productive members of the society, we’ve got a problem. The world has a problem. And it’s quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this. I think it’s very difficult for people who are not part of that religion to provide the leadership because what you have is a civil war, a struggle in that religion where a small minority of people are trying to hijack it and to focus it in a way that is hostile to civil society. Not the majority, by any means, but we as free people have not developed the skills to counter that. We’re not focusing on it. We’re focusing on law enforcement, we’re focusing on terrorist networks, we’re focusing on trying to defend against terrorist attacks, but terrorism is simply a technique being used by extremists. It is not the problem in and of itself, it’s a weapon that’s being used.
The rest of the world has not successfully organized, trained, cooperated, in a way that we have put, for example, President Musharraf is trying to improve the school systems in Pakistan. It takes money. There’s lots of money flowing into the madrasas schools that are teaching terrorism, but it takes money into those schools to get them to teach mathematics or science or languages. And the rest of the world needs to participate in that. President Musharraf, in my view, has stepped forward. He’s opposed terrorism. He’s actively trying to be helpful in the global war on terror, and yet simultaneously in that part of the world we see more terrorists being trained.
It is something that’s going to take cooperation and I don’t frankly see a coalition that’s organized to do it – whether they’re reluctant or willing either one. I don’t see any existing international organization that’s organized to do it. I don’t even see very many countries that are focusing on it. And it’s worrisome. It worries me because if people talk about a global war on terror or a global insurgency or a struggle between people who want to destroy the state system and people who want to defend the state system, I don’t see an effort going into that.
If we can’t answer the question are you winning or losing the global war on terror, because we know only what we’re being successful at – the things I listed. The numbers of people captured, the numbers of people killed, the numbers of terrorist events stopped. We know those things. What we don’t know is what’s coming in the intake. How many more of those folks are being trained and developed and organized and deployed and sent out to work the seams and the shadows and the caves? And each year that goes by has a growing likelihood that they’re going to have their hands on increasingly lethal capabilities.
The civilized world doesn’t know the answer to that question. And so your question’s right on the mark. The answer is I’m certain we don’t have our arms around that piece of it.
Absolutely chilling.
Rumsfeld is not animated by fear of loss of life from another strike against the homeland like 9/11. He fears the loss of an entire city. The loss of tens, or even hundreds of thousands from atomic or bio attack. I believe he realizes that if they can strike once and inflict this level of casualties, we must accept that they will be able to strike multiple times until the appeasers sell out our democracy.