Incertonia
13-12-2004, 03:29
On Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer today, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska gave Defense Secretary a vote of no-confidence. You can read the entire transcript here. (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/12/le.01.html)
One, Secretary Rumsfeld's response to this young soldier -- that soldier and those men and women there deserved a far better answer from their secretary of defense than a flippant comment. That might work in a news room where you can be cute with the television audience but not when you're putting these men and women in harm's way, who will be wounded, some, some will be killed.
And I wonder what the parents thought. I wonder what the parents thought, the parents who have men and women over there, sons and daughter who are fighting. I don't think they appreciated that answer....
the secretary of defense reports to the president of the United States. I've had my differences with this secretary of defense, and I have been very clear on it.
I don't like the way he has done some things. I think they have been irresponsible. I don't like the way we went into Iraq. We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers. He's dismissed all outside influence. He's dismissed outside counsel and advice. And he's dismissed a lot of inside counsel and advice from men and women who have been in military uniforms for 25 and 30 years.
One of the reasons we've got this problem, Wolf, in my opinion, is that we were unprepared for what we were going to face, what we are facing, in a post-Saddam Iraq. And this is just one more manifestation of the problem.
Listen, when I talk to these young troops that come back from Nebraska, National Guard Reserves, active duty, and I sit down with them alone in a room and no one there, no cameras, I ask them -- I was hearing some of these same things over the last year: not the right kind of weaponry, personal body armor they didn't have. They didn't have armor for their vehicles.
But yet too many of our leaders in this administration were going around the country telling and reassuring Americans our troops had everything they wanted. Certainly the Congress was passing a lot of money to make sure they had everything they wanted....
BLITZER: But very briefly to you, Senator Hagel, were you disappointed that the president asked Rumsfeld to stay on?
HAGEL: The president's decision is his decision. He will live with that decision. He'll have to defend that decision. And that's all I want to say about it.
Now let me say this about Chuck Hagel. I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Nebraska, because on too many other issues, he's far too conservative for my tastes. But that doesn't mean that I don't respect him--he's a man of conviction, especially on the issue of the military and the war in Iraq. And in this case, he's exactly right--Rumsfeld is incompetent, and it's a further condemnation of Bush that he's one of the very few Cabinet officials who is keeping his job.
One, Secretary Rumsfeld's response to this young soldier -- that soldier and those men and women there deserved a far better answer from their secretary of defense than a flippant comment. That might work in a news room where you can be cute with the television audience but not when you're putting these men and women in harm's way, who will be wounded, some, some will be killed.
And I wonder what the parents thought. I wonder what the parents thought, the parents who have men and women over there, sons and daughter who are fighting. I don't think they appreciated that answer....
the secretary of defense reports to the president of the United States. I've had my differences with this secretary of defense, and I have been very clear on it.
I don't like the way he has done some things. I think they have been irresponsible. I don't like the way we went into Iraq. We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers. He's dismissed all outside influence. He's dismissed outside counsel and advice. And he's dismissed a lot of inside counsel and advice from men and women who have been in military uniforms for 25 and 30 years.
One of the reasons we've got this problem, Wolf, in my opinion, is that we were unprepared for what we were going to face, what we are facing, in a post-Saddam Iraq. And this is just one more manifestation of the problem.
Listen, when I talk to these young troops that come back from Nebraska, National Guard Reserves, active duty, and I sit down with them alone in a room and no one there, no cameras, I ask them -- I was hearing some of these same things over the last year: not the right kind of weaponry, personal body armor they didn't have. They didn't have armor for their vehicles.
But yet too many of our leaders in this administration were going around the country telling and reassuring Americans our troops had everything they wanted. Certainly the Congress was passing a lot of money to make sure they had everything they wanted....
BLITZER: But very briefly to you, Senator Hagel, were you disappointed that the president asked Rumsfeld to stay on?
HAGEL: The president's decision is his decision. He will live with that decision. He'll have to defend that decision. And that's all I want to say about it.
Now let me say this about Chuck Hagel. I wouldn't vote for him if I lived in Nebraska, because on too many other issues, he's far too conservative for my tastes. But that doesn't mean that I don't respect him--he's a man of conviction, especially on the issue of the military and the war in Iraq. And in this case, he's exactly right--Rumsfeld is incompetent, and it's a further condemnation of Bush that he's one of the very few Cabinet officials who is keeping his job.