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Rumsfeld, Cheney Give Vocal Iraq Defense NewsMax.com Wires WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, disagreeing with a battle-tested congressman who calls for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq, is not budging from the Bush administration's position that senior commanders know best. Troop levels will remain at 160,000 as Iraqis prepare for elections Dec. 15, Rumsfeld said, and will return to a baseline strength of 130,000 when the commanders there determine that conditions on the ground warrant a drawdown. Pentagon policy has long based significant redeployments on the situation at hand. With the administration sharply countering the critics of its war policies, Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday was to deliver another speech defending the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Last week, Cheney dismissed allegations that prewar intelligence had been manipulated as "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." The debate turned more bitter after Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called for President Bush to remove troops from Iraq within six months. Republicans called Murtha's position one of abandonment and surrender and suggested that the decorated Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War and like-minded politicians were acting cowardly. The White House at first responded to Murtha's statement with ire. Spokesman Scott McClellan linked Murtha, a longtime supporter of the military who had backed the war, to maverick filmmaker Michael Moore and the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. Story Continues Below
Bush, who is returning Monday from a tour of Asia, later eased up on the criticism, praising Murtha as "a fine man" and saying that disagreeing with the administration was not unpatriotic. Rumsfeld, appearing on the Sunday morning news shows, acknowledged that questions about war ought to be debated, but he also warned that words have consequences for both the insurgents in Iraq and the U.S. troops opposing them. "The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder: 'Maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily.' They know that. The battle is here in the United States," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday." Arguments over pulling out troops immediately, he added, may lead Americans serving in Iraq to question "whether what they're doing makes sense." "We have to all have the willingness to have a free debate, but we also all have to have the willingness to understand what the effects of our words are," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week." Murtha wasn't backing off Sunday, when the death toll in Iraq climbed past 2,090. "There's no question we're going in the wrong direction and we're not winning," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There's nothing that's happening that shows any sign of success." The Pennsylvania Democrat predicted that most if not all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the time Americans vote in November 2006. Rumsfeld, however, said that leaving too soon would allow Iraq to be turned into a haven for terrorists. "There's no doubt in my mind that were we to pull out precipitously, the American people would be in greater danger than they are today," the defense secretary told CBS' "Face the Nation." Murtha said he believes Iraqis can take over the battle against the insurgents and allow U.S. troops to move out of danger. "We just have to give them the incentive to take it over," he said. "They're going to let us do the fighting as long as we're there. And, until we turn it over to them, they're not going to be up to standards." The U.S.-led coalition continues to make progress in training Iraqi security forces, Rumsfeld said, and he placed their number at 212,000. Rumsfeld disputed reports that fewer than 1,000 Iraqis were capable of fighting the insurgency without coalition assistance. Calling the lower number "a red herring," he said it does not reflect the involvement of Iraqis in securing their country. "The Iraqi security forces are out engaged in the fight," Rumsfeld said. "Some are in the lead, some are working with us in tandem, others are working with us where we have the lead, and that's perfectly understandable." In September, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told senators that only one Iraqi army battalion appeared capable of fighting without U.S. help.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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