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.
With the administration sharply countering the critics of its war policies, Vice President Dick Cheney is to deliver Monday at 11 a.m. ET 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."
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."
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