Donald Rumsfeld speech

Wonderful speech by Donald Rumsfeld at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Wretchard has some comments and the Washington Post has the transcript: Wretchard at The Belmont Club:

Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq
Donald Rumsfeld recently gave a speech at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced Studies at Johns Hopkins where he discussed in an engaging and candid way the reasons why perceptions over the Iraq mission differ and laying out why he thinks seeing OIF to victory is not only necessary but indispensable. But the question-and-answer period which followed rises above his prepared remarks by considerable margin.

Commentary
Secretary Rumsfeld regretted that every time he spoke it was inevitably to "several audiences" of varying degrees of friendliness or hostility, an awareness which probably made routine press briefings dull and wary affairs. But while Rumsfeld at Johns Hopkins may not have been playing to an unquestioningly admiring audience, I think he felt he was talking to a rational and highly intelligent group of listeners, one that could be swayed by force of argument and the enumeration of facts. That turned the Q&A period into a kind of dialogue, in which Rumsfeld proved willing to examine each question in the round. And the subjects he covers run the gamut. What is torture? Are military contractors necessary in Iraq? Why does the perception of the same event differ between segments of the American public? What is military transformation? What are the key advantages of the enemy? If they are not to be called insurgents, then what should they be called? How many troops are enough?

In responding to each question it's obvious he has considered them before and we can hear the echoes of earlier dialogues in his response to the students and faculty of Johns Hopkins; one can't help wondering in what setting those earlier conversations took place. And yet it isn't pure regurgitation because if one listens carefully it's possible to hear Rumsfeld debating with himself; and the reverberations give the listener something of a picture of his mind. And whether one likes or loathes him, Rumsfeld's mind is an interesting place to be.

" Rumsfeld's mind is an interesting place to be. " Heh... That is one very smart individual. From the transcript of his speech: On Iraq and the "insurgents" (who named them that anyway -- that is an almost sympathetic term...)

The other question I posed is of critical importance, and that was, "Why does Iraq success or failure matter to the American people?"

Consider this quote: "What you have seen, Americans, in New York and Washington, D.C., and the losses you are having in Afghanistan, Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes," unquote.

The speaker was Zawahiri, the senior member of Al Qaida and a top leader in the effort to defeat U.S. and coalition forces, and, I should add, moderate Muslim regimes around the world.

The terrorist methods of attack, simply put, are slaughter. They behead, they bomb children, they attack funerals and wedding receptions. This is the kind of brutality and mayhem that the terrorists are working to bring to our shores.

And if we do not succeed in efforts to arm and train Iraqis to help defeat the terrorists in Iraq, this is the kind of mayhem that these terrorists, emboldened by a victory, will bring to our shores, let there be no doubt.

On the Geneva Convention and our treatment of terrorists:

The decisions were made by the Department of Justice and by the president. And in their minds, they do believe that they are conforming to the Geneva Convention.

As you know, the Geneva Conventions provided that people should be treated in one way if they were functioning under the laws of war: if they wore uniforms, if they carried their weapons publicly, if they adhered to certain things.

And the Geneva Conventions purposely rewarded people, if you will, who conducted themselves in that manner, and distinguished them from people who did not.

The president, obviously, said that the situation in Iraq did lead to a situation. They wore uniforms. They carried their weapons properly. So the provisions of the Geneva Convention provided applied to them.

The president also decided that the terrorists and the people who blow up children and women indiscriminately and don't wear uniforms and don't carry weapons out did not merit the same treatment that people who did conduct themselves in that manner.

However, he went on to say that, notwithstanding that, they should receive humane treatment. That was his instruction, that was the instruction I put out throughout the Department of Defense, and the policy of the department has been for those individuals who were the Taliban or the Al Qaida or other terrorist individuals as opposed to people who were part of an organized military.

The transcript is a long one (the speech was about 40 minutes long) but worth reading as it is a window into our policy in Iraq -- one not reported by the MSM...