2/6/2005 10:00:00 PM GMT
Asked on Sunday when would the U.S. withdraw its troops from Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that it is not knowable when the United States will have trained enough Iraqi forces to fully handle the country’s security, so that American troops, currently helping provide protection, can leave the country.
"It's interesting to me that some people think they know that because it's not knowable," the Defense Secretary told Rumsfeld told ABC's "This Week."
Regarding the two resignation letters he presented to President George W. Bush after the Iraqi abuse scandal broke out last April, Rumsfeld said he still thinks he could be an effective Pentagon chief but wanted the president to make that call.
"I told him I really thought he ought to carefully consider it. But he made a conscious decision, and life goes on, and here we are," Rumsfeld said.
The U.S. is using the training of Iraqi forces as a reason for its military presence in the country even after Jan. 30 elections.
Currently, the U.S. has 150,000 troops in Iraq.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers told the Congress that only one-third of Iraq's 136,000 trained security forces have the ability of facing the growing strength of the Iraqi rebels.
Rumsfeld also said that when the Iraqis will be able to handle the country’s security depends on several unknown factors, and that’s why no specific date can be set for the U.S. full withdrawal from the country.
Also Rumsfeld said that it remains unknown the extent to which "the political process is going to tip people away from supporting insurgency or being on the fence to supporting the government," referring to Syria and Iran’s alleged support to the Iraqi rebels.
"What you need to do is have the economic progress, the political progress which is going forward in such good style. And that will determine the level of the insurgency," Rumsfeld said. "And the level of the insurgency will determine the speed at which Iraqi security forces will be capable of managing that level of insurgency."
The Defense Secretary acknowledged there were are lot of "ifs," but added, "That's life."
Rumsfeld, moreover, admitted his responsibility in the Iraqi abuse scandal at the prison near Baghdad.
"My goodness, it happened on my watch," he said. But, he added, "On the other hand, if secretaries of defense resigned every time someone did something they shouldn't do, out of the millions of people involved in the defense establishment — or a mayor or a governor, something happened in their country, you wouldn't have anyone in public office.
"So it's a tough calculation," he said.
Last April, appalling photographs, showing U.S. soldiers torturing and sexually abusing Iraqi detainees surfaced, sparking worldwide outrage. But at that time, the U.S. Defense Secretary told lawmakers that he would offer to resign if he found himself no longer an effective figure in the Pentagon, however, he said that he would never resign simply to please his critics and opponents.
Also Sunday, U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said that Islam won’t be the guiding principle of the new Iraqi government, arguing that the Iraqi people have the right to shape their country’s democracy without becoming "an Iraqi version of America."
"They will do it their way," Cheney told Fox News Sunday. "They will do it in accordance with their culture and their history and their beliefs and whatever role they decide they want to have for religion in their society. And that's as it should be."
The United Iraqi Alliance - a Shiite-led group has taken a big lead in Iraq’s preliminary election results.
The vice-president pointed out that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, has said he does not believe clerics should be directly involved in the day-to-day operations of government.
"I think there are a great many people involved in the political process in Iraq who will seek some kind of balance," Cheney said.
"But in the final analysis, the bottom line for everybody to remember here is, this is not going to be, you know, an Iraqi version of America. This is going to be Iraq. It's going to be written by the Iraqis, for the Iraqis, implemented and executed by them."