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'US capable of fighting simultaneous conflicts,' US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on North Korea, November 18

'U.S. Capable of Fighting Multiple Conflicts,' Rumsfeld Says, DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, November 18, 2003.

Rumsfeld: ...It is a real privilege for me to be with you. I feel fortunate to be able to meet with the ones that are doing so much to keep the peace in such an important part of the world on this peninsula, and in doing so you contribute to peace on the globe...

When you live and work as you do, on the border between freedom and slavery, between democracy and communism, between prosperity and poverty, a divide so great that people to the north repress people, to be sure, watch their children waste away, eat bark as an evil regime spends its funds on weapons, I'm sure you have a very clear sense of your mission.

This summer we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of America's treaty with the Republic of Korea and the end of the Korean War. The war was not easy. The enemy did not collapse within days. And because the peninsula, this peninsula was divided at the end, some people tend to think of it as having been a draw, if you will. But at the end of the day there were very clear winners and losers in the Korean War.

One nation below the demilitarized zone emerged into the light and went on to develop institutions of freedom and the infrastructure needed for the information age economy. The other nation has dwelt in poverty and darkness for five decades.

I say that literally. In the Pentagon I have a table with some glass on it and under the glass I have a photograph [taken] from a satellite at night of the Korean peninsula. What it shows is: below the DMZ, light, energy, people doing things, activity; and north of the DMZ it is black. There's one pinpoint of light at Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

That is the difference between tyranny and freedom.

The success of the Republic of Korea didn't happen by accident, and it didn't happen overnight. It happened for several reasons, one of which was that the United States of America, our families, your families, made a commitment to security on this peninsula, and they kept it. They have kept it for 50 years. Our men and women in uniform were stationed in places like Osan to help guarantee the peace. And because we did so the Republic of Korea has transformed itself from a small, war-torn nation into a nation of people who are free and prosperous, who have a vibrant democracy, and who are engaged constructively in the world. It is an enormous success story.

I was interviewed up in Seoul yesterday or the day before. The woman interviewing me was very interested in the government of Korea's decision to send additional troops to Iraq. They already have some forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the press is now discussing the president of Korea's decision to send some additional forces. She looked at me, a Korean woman, and she said "why should the Korean people send their young men and women over to Iraq, halfway across the globe?" It's a fair question. I said, "I suppose for the exact, same reason that the American people sent their young men and women over to Korea 50 years ago."

You ask the question: Was it worth it? You bet it was. Was it easy? No. It has not been easy, and it's not easy today. You know that. Nor was it free. But it was the right thing to do. And at the end of the day, when the institutions of a new democracy have taken root, and when Iraq becomes a constructive player in the Middle East, and not a threat to its neighbors, and not a threat to its own people, the rightness of our efforts there, as tough as it is today -- and it is tough and dangerous, let there be no doubt -- that the rightness of our efforts there will be clear as well.

Some ask why should Americans expend American blood and treasury in Iraq? The answer is: because it's in our national interest to help the Iraqi people to become constructive players in the community of nations. Americans will be safer if Iraq is part of an axis of peace instead of an axis of evil.

All of you have worked hard personally and sacrificed to help keep the peace on the Korean Peninsula. You're part of something that the world has rarely seen in history -- the mighty armed forces of a truly great nation that sends its sources to help people -- not to plunder, not to pillage, not to conquer and destroy, but to assist them in building free and prosperous nations.

The American people value and appreciate your service. I appreciate your service. Your country is grateful and proud of each of you.

Now I would be delighted to respond to some questions. I'm told there are some microphones here. If the questions are too tough I've got General LaPorte here. [Laughter] And Leon can handle the tough ones...

Q: Mr. Secretary, I'm Captain Jewell Ebanks, U.S. Air Force, assigned to the 51st Maintenance Squadron here at Osan Air Base. My hometown is Englewood, New Jersey.

Sir, my question is: what is your vision regarding future U.S. military forces in Korea?

RUMSFELD: What's your vision? [Laughter and Applause]

The president asked me, when I came back to this post as secretary of defense, to look at our arrangements all over the globe, and we have been doing that now for the better part of two years -- the so-called footprint or posture, our force posture, how we're arranged. The reality is that we were pretty much arranged in a way that was kind of left over from the last century. We were arranged in some instances with sort of a static defense posture. And in the 21st century that really isn't going to be good enough. We have to be much more agile. We have to be able to move more quickly. We don't have to worry about a major tank battle coming across the north German plain from the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union has disappeared.

What we do need to do is to see that we have reviewed our deployments, that we have a forward engagement strategy, that we stay engaged in the world as a deterrent, as well as the ability to defend, particularly in a situation like this. So as part of that we have been reviewing our force posture here in Korea.

General LaPorte and his team have been analyzing what they think makes sense. They have come back and made recommendations. And the recommendations to, kind of, do it very simply have been that we probably ought to consolidate from a very large number of locations around the peninsula forward into two hubs -- one in this area and one south, so that we have a bigger concentration of our capabilities and our people. That is something that he and others are in the process of discussing with the Republic of Korea government. So full stop on that.

The vision is that this has been just a wonderfully successful alliance. On the other hand the Republic of Korea is today, 50 years later, I think it's probably the 12th largest gross domestic product on the face of the earth. It has a population that's probably twice as large as North Korea's. It has a vibrant, energetic economy. And as the president of Korea said within the last month or two, it is time for them to set a goal to become somewhat more self-reliant. They suggested they would do that over a decade's period. And as they do that, which is I believe a sound approach from their standpoint, as they do that, one would think we would be able to work with them to assure that the deterrent and the ability to defend remains effective. Because we do not want to inject any instability into this peninsula. This is an enormously important part of the world for us and for, needless to say, the people here.

So what I see is the circumstance evolving over the coming decade with us making some adjustments, with the Republic of Korea making some adjustments, and each of us transforming our forces in ways that will take advantage of the new technologies that exist and the ability to use precision munitions, for example. And that will be something that will increase our capability and certainly assure that we keep a very stable, healthy deterrent...

Q: How are you doing, sir? My name's Airman Gray from the 51st OIS, Physical Operations, Osan Air Base.

My question is, with the increased deaths in Iraq, what are we doing to make sure that our troops are making it home, and what are your reactions to the terrorist acts going on over there now?

RUMSFELD: What we've got going on in Iraq is really a contradiction. On the one hand you have some very good things taking place. The schools are open, the hospitals and clinics are working, there's a central bank, they have a new currency, they have a Governing Council, they have city councils or provincial councils that cover most of the country at the present time. The Governing Council's appointed a Cabinet of Ministers that are very talented and on the security side we've been able to go from zero up to something in excess of 130,000 Iraqi security forces in the army, the border patrol, site protection and the like. So there's a lot of good that's happening. Essential services are being delivered, electricity and water and the like. There's no humanitarian crisis, there's no ethnic cleansing taking place, which has occurred previously between the various religious elements in the country. That's not happening.

So that's on the plus side of the ledger.

On the minus side of the ledger, it is a very dangerous place. The remnants of the Ba'athist regime are still there. How many? There are a lot of them left, but how many of them are actively opposing the coalition? I don't know. General Abizaid has estimated maybe 5,000. There were something like 100,000 criminals let out of the jails of Iraq by Saddam Hussein. Some of them are still at large. There are foreign terrorists coming across the borders from, basically, Syria and Iran. Our folks, our troops are out arresting them and finding them all the time. We've got something between 200 and 300 of them in jails at the present time that have come from these various porous borders that exist.

General Abizaid believes there is not any kind of a -- anything that any one can characterize as a military threat to the United States forces there of a strategic nature. There are some number of thousands of people who are using rocket-propelled grenades, they're using improvised explosive devices, they're using landmines, and they are successfully -- they're using some surface-to-air missiles and they are successfully killing Americans and coalition forces, and in addition they are killing a lot of Iraqis.

So you have a lot of progress taking place, and simultaneously you have terrorist acts or low-intensity warfare taking place. A recent estimate was that about 95 percent of it is in Baghdad, the immediate environs and north in Tikrit, in that so-called triangle area. There are incidents south and far north and in the west as well, but a very low number of them generally.

You ask what's being done about it. What's being done is the military forces in Iraq are adjusting their tactics and techniques and procedures to put pressure on the terrorists. They're doing it all across the country. Every day that goes by they are finding additional caches of weapons, money. They're arresting people in relatively large numbers and I think, I could be wrong by 10 or 15 percent, but in a recent week -- I'm not sure if it was last week or the week before or the one before that, but there was something -- hundreds and hundreds of patrols. There were dozens and dozens of these improvised explosive devices found that had not exploded. There were a couple of handfuls that did explode in some instances that killed people. There were something like 200 people captured and detained and imprisoned on raids that took place. There were some 40 or 50 killed and another 40 or 50 wounded.

What's happening is our forces are out going to school on what the terrorists are doing and simultaneously the terrorists are going to school on what we're doing. You can just see the thing evolve and move from one type of attack to another as we are more successful -- not just we. At the present time there are more Iraqi security forces in Iraq then there are American security forces. We're down to about 127,000 and the Iraqis have something north of 130,000, and then there's the coalition forces of another 25,000 or 30,000. Our trend line is to keep transferring over responsibility for security in the country away from U.S. and coalition forces to the Iraqi forces. That's moving apace.

It's going to be a bumpy road. When you're recruiting that many people and training that many people that fast, there are undoubtedly going to be some people who are going to get weeded out as we go along. Some of the people in the police, for example, have been put on the street with only four weeks training instead of what was considered appropriate eight weeks training. They're going to have to be recycled for the second four weeks of training. The army people being trained take a considerably longer time because they're better equipped and better trained and will be obviously a more competent force than the people that receive a much shorter training period.

But the path we're on is to transfer sovereignty for Iraq to the Iraqi people. The president met with his National Security Council the day I left, which is about a week ago, and Ambassador Bremer, and discussed some proposals that the Iraqi Governing Council had made. Ambassador Bremer went back and is now in the process of working with them on those proposals and developing a path, a timeline as to how he feels and they feel it's appropriate to pass sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

Simultaneously we're passing more and more responsibility for security to the Iraqi people. That is the path we're on.

The goal obviously is to stay as long as is necessary to see that they're on an appropriate path towards a stable society, and not a day longer. The path we're on is to say that it ought to be a single country; it ought not to be broken up into little pieces. It ought to be a country that's at peace with its neighbors. It ought to be a country that has a system of government that's respectful of the various diverse elements and religious groups that exist in that country. And then last, they ought to have a government that fits Iraq. It ought to be an Iraqi-fashioned solution to their future.

The people there are scarred by decades of a repressive, dictatorial, truly vicious regime. The mass graves in that country are a sight. The thought of tens of thousands of people being killed and put in these mass graves. The prisons are something to behold. The film that's been being shown on television recently of captured Iraqi intelligence films of filming of people having their hands cut off and their heads cut off and being thrown off of buildings, their tongues pulled off with pliers and cut off. It's just a regime that the world is so much better off that it is gone and that those 23 million people are liberated.

If you add the Afghan people, another 23 million, it's something like 46 million people have been liberated from vicious regimes in the case of Iraq and from a country that was basically a massive terrorist training camp in the case of Afghanistan. So a lot of good has happened and yet we're still in a dangerous, difficult phase...

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. My name is Senior Airman Williams. I'm stationed here at Osan, the 51st Communications Squadron. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas.

My question is in regard to more current events, in regard to the security issues being issued to North Korea. My question basically is if those take place and if they come to fruition, how would that affect bases such as Osan, Kunsan, things of that nature centrally located here as well as in places like Okinawa and places in Japan?

RUMSFELD: Where we've arrived is we have concepts. The next step -- and they're pretty well thought through, well developed conceptually. The next step then is to go to the countries, our friends and allies in some cases, some other countries that are not currently necessarily allies, and talk to them about these concepts. The next step after that is to go to the Congress and work through how that might be done. Then it rolls out over a period of time.

If I were to start talking about what some of those concepts were beyond what I've already said I would kind of be getting ahead of my headlights because we have not talked to some of the countries about them. We need to do that. We've also not quite gotten to the Congress yet and therefore how it will eventually evolve depends on those two interactions, both of which are very important in determining how it will shake out.

But my guess is you'll end up seeing that the United States continues to have a considerable presence overseas, but that it may be adjusted lighter or heavier than previously, and that it will tend to be positioned in ways that it can move quickly, be relatively agile, and be deployable as opposed to static. I think that that very likely will give our country a healthier deterrent and an ability to use our forces in the most effective way wherever in the world they might be needed.

One of the things we've concluded about the world we're living in today is that in the last century it was relatively easy to look around the world and say that is where the threat will come from, that country. And the threat will be of this type. We can't do that today. No one asked me in my confirmation hearings three years ago what did I think about Afghanistan. It never came up.

What does that mean? It means we have to be positioned in a way that recognizes that threats can come up in ways that are surprising, and we need to be more attentive to the kinds of capabilities that will be posed against us rather than specifically where they might come from.

If one looks across this globe there are big, large portions of the globe that are not being governed by anybody. Those ungoverned areas are dangerous areas. They're areas where terrorists can train. They're areas that can be used for hostage taking. They can be used for narcotics trafficking. They can be used for a host of global problems that you can't hold a country accountable for.

The other problem we've got are these seams that exist between countries, the so-called borders. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a difficult problem for us. The border between Afghanistan and Iran is a problem. The border between Iran and Iraq is a problem. The border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen is used to advantage by people. And it makes it a very difficult set of problems.

So I think generally that's how it will roll out, but it will be a force that, a positioning, a posture, a footprint, that gives us that kind of flexibility that we can deal with issues as they arise rather than the old days where you simply constantly looked at the Soviet Union and tried to help prevent them from expanding any more than they already had...

Q: I'm Lieutenant Lee assigned to the 51st Fighter Wing, Manpower Office here in Osan Air Base. I'm from Los Angeles, California.

My question is, if and when the reunification of the Koreas ever were to happen, what direct manpower impact do you see here for the forces assigned here in Korea?

RUMSFELD: I'm one of those people who -- I'm always an optimist. I do see a day when this peninsula will be unified. I don't know when it will happen. I sure hope and pray it's in my lifetime. I think of the tragedy of the lives of those folks living up north in that darkness. It is just a crime, literally a crime.

If and when it happens I suppose one could look at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the situation in East and West Germany as well as East and West Berlin. It's complicated. The two halves are so different in nature that it is not an easy thing to bring them together, but I think it can happen and I hope and pray it does happen one day. The problems of working through how that reunification would take place in terms of what would have to be done and the inevitable flows of people in different directions. Those problems would be so much less than the problems that exist today. Clearly, if this peninsula were unified and peaceful, that would be a wonderful thing and a wonderful accomplishment and the folks that serve here would not have to serve here because it would be, the threat would have been reduced and to the extent we were here, it would be for whatever purposes still existed.

Thank you.

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I'm Steven [inaudible] from Kunsan Air Base, LRS, the Kunsan Air Base Honor Guard, from Lakewood, Washington.

My question is if a conflict was to happen with North Korea here do you see a problem with sending forces here and keeping forces in Iraq to fulfill both conflicts?

RUMSFELD: No. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant commanders in the regions have a set of contingency plans as to how they would manage their affairs and the conclusion they have from the exercises they conduct and the scenarios they engage in is that the United States is capable of dealing with a major conflict such as Iraq and a sizeable force deployment and simultaneously being able to relatively swiftly defeat any invasion of that type. It's not your first choice, needless to say, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff have advised me that that's the case and advised the President that that's the case.

Q: Thank you, sir.

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. My name is Sergeant Harry James Nelson. I'm with Charlie Battery, 143 80AD, I'm stationed here at Osan Air Base. I was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

My question for you is right now Patriot is centralized in Fort Bliss, Texas. Is there any way we can be decentralized instead of staying in one spot?

RUMSFELD: I don't know. [Laughter] I'm afraid that's a question that really ought to be posed to Pete Schoomaker and the Army. I honestly do not know if they're considering ay changes there.

Patriot batteries are needed and valuable and performed well in Iraq. They are important in my view in this peninsula, not just for the protection of U.S. forces but I think eventually the Korean government has to think about missile defense of that type.

But in terms of whether or not there would be a change of location of the type you're talking about, I'm sorry, I just don't know. I bet you General LaPorte knows...

Source: US State Department, Washington File, http://usinfo.state.gov.

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