BY DONALD RUMSFELD
Wednesday, December 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

(Editor's note: Mr. Rumsfeld delivered this speech Monday at the School of
Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.)

I'm not one to put much faith in opinion polls. But the other day, I came
across an interesting set of statistics that I want to mention. It seems
that the Pew Research Center asked opinion leaders in the United States
their views of the prospects for a stable democracy in Iraq.

Here were some of the results: 63% of people in the news media thought the
enterprise would fail. So did 71% of people in the foreign affairs
establishment and 71% in academic settings or think tanks. Interestingly,
opinion leaders from the U.S. military are optimistic about Iraq by a margin
of 64% to 32%. And so is the American public, by a margin of 56% to 37%.

And the Iraqi people are also optimistic. I've seen this demonstrated
repeatedly--in public opinion polls, in the turnout for the elections, and
that tips to authorities from ordinary Iraqis have grown from 483 to 4,700
tips in a month.

This prompts the question: Which view of Iraq is more accurate? The
pessimistic view of so-called elites in our country--or the optimism
expressed by millions of Iraqis and by the roughly 158,000 troops on the
ground? But, most important is the question: why should Iraq's success or
failure matter to the American people? I'd like to address these questions
today.

First, should we be optimistic or pessimistic about Iraq's future? The
answer may depend on one's perspective. Indeed, one of the reasons that
views of Iraq are so divergent is that we may be looking at Iraq through
different prisms of experience and expectation.

For starters, it must be jarring for reporters who have never covered the
Middle East to leave the United States and arrive in a country that is so
different, where they consistently have to worry about their personal
safety, then are rushed to the scene of car bombs and shootings, and have
little opportunity to see the rest of the country.

By contrast, the Iraqi people see things somewhat differently: They can
compare as it is Iraq today, to what it was three years ago--a brutal
dictatorship where the secret police would murder or mutilate a family
member sometimes in front of their children, and where hundreds of thousands
disappeared into Saddam's mass graves. From that perspective, Iraq today is
on a vastly different, and a greatly improved path.

If one is viewing events through a soda straw, one should know that one is
by definition selectively focusing on facts that may highlight one's
perceived view and not seeing other perspectives. A full picture of Iraq
comes best from an understanding of both the good and the bad, and the
context for each.

Among the continuing difficulties are:

* Bursts of violence, including continued assassinations and attempts to
intimidate Iraqi leaders and those supporting the legitimate Iraqi
government.

* Continuing U.S. and Iraqi casualties.

* Iran and Syria continue to be notably unhelpful.

However, there are also a number of positive developments to be seen, if one
looks for them:

* The political process is on schedule. Iraqis have a Constitution they
wrote and voted for, and hundreds of candidates are politicking for the
elections.

* There seem to be growing divisions among the enemies of the Iraqi
people, particularly after the bombing of a wedding reception in Amman,
Jordan.

* More of Iraq's neighbors now seem to believe this new democracy might
succeed and are moving to get right with the Iraqi people by being more
active in their support.

* A vital and engaged media is emerging, with some 100 newspapers, 72
radio stations, and 44 television stations.

* Sunnis are increasingly taking part in the political process, further
isolating those who still oppose the legitimate Iraqi government.

To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence
of terrorist attacks. As Sen. Joe Lieberman recently suggested, a better
measure of success might be that a vast majority of Iraqis--tens of
millions--are on the side of the democratic government, while a
comparatively small number are opposed. This gives the Iraqi people an
enormous advantage over time.

The other question I posed is of critical importance: why does Iraq's
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 and Iraq, in
spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial
clashes."

The speaker is Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior member of the terrorist group al
Qaeda and a top leader in the effort to defeat U.S. and coalition forces
around the world. The terrorists' method of attack, simply put, is
slaughter. They behead. They bomb children. They attack funerals and wedding
receptions.

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

Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq--despite the
cost--is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, though
democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves
good things. It is not about reopening Iraqi schools and hospitals or
rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and are
desirable and essential to ensure stability.

But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to
protect the lives of Americans here at home.

Imagine the world our children would face if we allowed Zawahiri, Zarqawi,
bin Laden and others of their ilk to seize power or operate with impunity
out of Iraq. They would turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was before 9/11--a
haven for terrorist recruitment and training and a launching pad for attacks
against U.S. interests and our fellow citizens. Iraq would serve as the base
of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and to
threaten legitimate governments throughout the world . This is their plan.
They have said so. We should listen and learn.

Quitting is not a strategy. Quitting is an invitation to more attacks and
more terrorist violence here at home. This is not just an hypothesis. The
U.S. withdrawal from Somalia emboldened Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. We
know this. He has said so.

The message retreat in Iraq would send to the free people of Iraq and to
moderate Muslim reformers throughout the region would be that they can't
count on America. The message it would send to our enemies would be: that if
America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not
defend itself against terrorists anywhere.

What is needed is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than
thinking in terms of an exit strategy, we should be focused on a strategy
for success. The president's strategy focuses on progress on the political,
economic, and security tracks. You can read that strategy paper on the White
House's Web site.

On the security side, some 214,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained
and equipped. Working with coalition forces, they are steadily improving in
experience and capability:

* Coalition forces have handed over military bases to Iraqi control and
a complex of palaces in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

* Iraqi forces are improving their control of the Western borders of
Iraq, with coalition support.

* The Shiite areas of Najaf, Karbala and Sadr City, the scenes of
battles last year, are considerably more peaceful.

* In Tal Afar, 5,000 Iraqi troops took a key role in liberating and
securing what had been a base of operations for extremists' networks and
foreign networks.

I began these remarks by mentioning the jarring contrast between what the
American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the
Iraqi people. I don't think we can close a discussion on Iraq without
mentioning the media coverage and the current political debate.

Recently, a member of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association
recounted intense discussions within the AP over whether or not their
coverage of Iraq has been slanted. For my part, almost every time I meet
with troops, I am asked the same question. They ask, why are the American
people being given a pessimistic, inaccurate picture of what is happening in
Iraq?

But let me say something in defense of the media. They have a tough job.
Many reporters in Afghanistan and Iraq have done excellent reporting, and
some have lost their lives.

And consider what would result if the federal government had to put out a
daily newspaper or a daily television program. You can probably imagine what
the bureaucrats would come up with: conflicting rules and regulations, an
army of lawyers to sort through all the conflicts, a multitude of auditors
to check up on everyone, a mammoth bill to the taxpayers, followed by
congressional investigations of why they missed their daily deadline.

The media serves a valuable--indeed an indispensable--role in informing our
society and holding government to account. But I would submit it is also
important for the media to hold itself to account.

We have arrived at a strange time in this country when the worst about
America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press
and reported and spread around the world--with little or no context or
scrutiny--let alone correction or accountability--even after the fact.
Speed, it appears, is often the first goal--not accuracy, not context.

Recently there were claims by two Iraqis on a speaking tour that U.S.
soldiers threw them in a cage with lions. Their charges were widely
reported--still without substantiation. Not too long ago, there was a false
and damaging story about a Koran supposedly flushed down a toilet, and in
the riots that followed people were killed. And a recent New York Times
editorial implied America's armed forces--your armed forces--use tactics
reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.

I understand that there may be great pressure on them to tell a dramatic
story. And while it is easy to use a bombing or a terrorist attack to
support a belief that Iraq is a failure, that is not the accurate picture.
And further, it is not good journalism.

Consider this: You couldn't tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by
listing the nearly 26,000 American casualties over about 40 days; or explain
the importance of Grant's push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of
the battles. So too, in Iraq, it is appropriate to note not only how many
Americans have been killed--and may God bless them and their families--but
what they died for--or more accurately, what they lived for.

So I suggest to editors and reporters--whose good intentions I take for
granted--to do some soul searching. To ask: how will history judge--if it
does--the reporting decades from now when Iraq's path is settled?

I would urge us all to make every effort to ensure we are telling the whole
story. To take a moment for self-reflection and reassessment.

Further it is worth noting that there are 158,000 Americans in uniform who
are sending e-mails back to friends and families, telling them the truth as
they see it. And much of it is different than what those in the United
States are seeing and reading about every day.

Our country is waging a battle unlike any other in history. We are waging it
in a media age unlike any that war fighters have ever known. In this new
century, we all need to make adjustments--in government and in the media.
And change is hard.

But to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, we are all Republicans. We are all
Democrats. We are all Americans. We are all in this together. And what we do
today will not only impact us, but our children and our grandchildren, and
the kind of world they will live in.

Mr. Rumsfeld is secretary of defense.

__________________
I just hate stupid people. They should have to wear signs that say I'm stupid. That way, you wouldn't rely on them would you. You wouldn't ask them anything. It'd be like, "excuse me...oops, nevermind, I didn't see your sign."

What does this have to do with AUC?

__________________
Director of Anatomy --
Skipper's Medical Univeristy of the Dutch West Indies--SMU-DWI

this should be in the relaxing lounge---

__________________
My ID says MD....wow!

President and Dean of--
Skipper's Medical Univeristy of the Dutch West Indies--SMU-DWI
Apply Now.....Get an MD in 6 Weeks....

If you fail at AUC, SGU, or Ross why not transfer to SMU, if you fail at SMU, why not try another SMU.

rather than just commenting on the thread, please flag for the moderators. thanks.

__________________
Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

Hey, Cultural Infidel, thanks. Good read.


It's nice to see reality effectively communicated.

__________________
"When you educate a man beyond his intelligence, you create a menace to society."

I remember someone going off on a tangent about the war in a post in the AUC forum but couldn't find the post so I just made a new one. My bad

__________________
I just hate stupid people. They should have to wear signs that say I'm stupid. That way, you wouldn't rely on them would you. You wouldn't ask them anything. It'd be like, "excuse me...oops, nevermind, I didn't see your sign."

The war was about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, not about democracy.

Only fools buy into the back-up reason. Plus, Iran pretty much controls Southern Iraq and has sway in the Kurdish region. That is why Iran will have nuclear weapons and America will lose influence in the middle east.

When Saddam and the Taliban were around, Iran was kept in check but now all bets are off. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is a direct result of Iraq's fake WMD war in 2003 (or the push for democracy as it was known since 2004).

Then I'm a fool. Who else is a fool? I think we should get together and have a fool party. Maybe I'm just FaFaFaFaFoooooolin. I love Def Leppard

__________________
I just hate stupid people. They should have to wear signs that say I'm stupid. That way, you wouldn't rely on them would you. You wouldn't ask them anything. It'd be like, "excuse me...oops, nevermind, I didn't see your sign."

Dont be so hard on yourself.

__________________
I always come back.

Well, count me in. Count me in on the back-up reason for the Civil War, too. Oh ya, and WWII while we are at it.

__________________
"When you educate a man beyond his intelligence, you create a menace to society."