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June 18, 2005

Rumsfeld Admits Coalition Can't Defeat Iraqi Insurgency

Professor Paul Rogers asserts in his June 16, 2005 article at Open Democracy that U.S. Secretary of Defense "Donald Rumsfeld has broken a taboo: the United States military cannot win in Iraq." He was referring to a comment Mr. Rumsfeld made in a June 14, 2005 interview with Sir David Frost on the BBC's Newsnight Program.

Mr. Frost: Tell me, on the subject of Iraq, Mr. Secretary, do you believe the security situation in Iraq is better today than it was on the day after the war ended?

Rumsfeld: Well, statistically no, but clearly it has been getting better as we've gone along. In other words, at the end of the war the Army fled, was captured in large, many thousands, tens of thousands were captured, and the country was defeated. The insurgency then built over a period of time, and it's had its ups and downs. Clearly they made an effort during the election period, January 30th, to try to derail the election and prevent it from happening, but the Iraqi security forces now number 169,000; the efforts on the part of the coalition countries have shifted from counterinsurgency to helping the Iraqi security forces and they've had some important political milestones. They've had an election, they've got a government, they are now working on their constitution, and a lot of the bad things that could have happened have not happened.

Frost: Why has the bad thing though happened that the insurgents multiplied, people have been from 5,000 to 17,500.

Rumsfeld: I think people who come up with those numbers are pulling them out of the air. I don't know how you know those. I don't know those. I hear different numbers from different people at different times and then I hear the same people changing their numbers.

There's clearly people coming in from other countries, from Iran and from Syria and through other borders. The borders are relatively porous. The important thing it seems to me is for them to recognize that this insurgency is going to be defeated not by the coalition, it's going to be defeated by the Iraqi people and by the Iraqi security forces. It's going to happen as the Iraqi people begin go believe they've got a future in that country. All elements have a future in that country. The constitutional process will be important and then the elections to take place at the end of the year. Statistically, no. It has been getting better as we've gone along. A lot of bad things that could have happened have not happened. See "An unwinnable war" for more.

Editor's Note: The excerpt above is from the Defense Department's website. I only found excerpts of the BBC transcript, which means I was unable to make a comparison. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the Defense Department transcript.

Posted by Munir Umrani at June 18, 2005 06:49 AM

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