This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.

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Rumsfeld: No Way To Know How Many Troops It Will Take (“It Is Unknowable”) (Small – 5 MB)
Tim Russert:
“Time magazine reports this today, that this question was asked in the closed briefing with senators, “‘What troop levels do we expect to have in Iraq a year from now?,’ asked Senator Bill Frist, the Republican leader. And with that, the Pentagon chief began to tap dance.” Do you believe that you have an obligation to tell our leaders in Congress what your best estimate is for troop levels in Iraq a year from now?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“You know, since — any war, when it starts, the questions are obvious. The questions are: How long is it going to last? How many casualties will there be? And, How many troops will it take?
Now, those questions can’t be answered. Every time someone has answered those questions, they’ve been wrong. They have been embarrassingly wrong. I’ll use another word: They have “misinformed.” By believing they knew the answers to those questions, they’ve misinformed and misled the American people.
I made a conscious decision at the outset of these conflicts to not pretend I knew something I didn’t know. And what I have said is just that. I have said it is not knowable.
Now, if you think about Bosnia, we were told by the administration back then that the American forces would be out by Christmas. That was six and a half years ago. They’re not out yet. That was — that — the effect of that was not consciously misleading — I’m sure they believed it. They were that wrong — six and a half years wrong. I don’t intend to be wrong six and a half years. I intend to have people understand the truth, and the truth is no one knows. But why is that question not answerable?
And Bill Frist knows this. He asked it because others were interested in that question. He’s been very supportive and very complimentary of what we’re doing, and it was not a critical question at all. It was a question that should have been raised. And I said was this: The security situation on the ground is going to determine the total number of security forces that are needed in Iraq.”

This clip includes some harsh criticism from prominent Repubs such as Frank Wolf and Chuck Hagel.
This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.

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Rumsfeld: On The Shrub Administration’s Refusal To Cooperate With Congress (Small – 5 MB)
Tim Russert:
“Let me turn to some of the concerns expressed by Republicans in the Congress. This was Frank Wolf: Republican allies complain of administration arrogance towards Congress: ‘Pride goeth before the fall.’
And this, a prominent Republican Hill staffer: Rumsfeld and Secretary Wolfowitz, your top deputy, ‘just give off the sense that they know better than thou, and they don’t have to answer our questions.’
And this from Chuck Hagel on the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, Republican: ‘The Bush administration did miscalculate the difficulty of the war in Iraq. I think they did a miserable job of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq. They treated many in the Congress, most of the Congress, like a nuisance. When we asked questions, we wanted to be helpful, we wanted to participate. And now they are finding out that reality is dominating.’
‘Arrogance?’ ‘Nuisance?’ Not a full appreciation of your fellow Republicans in the Congress?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“Well, you know, there’s 535 members of the House and Senate, and you are going to find every viewpoint across the spectrum. It’s always been so. You’ve served there — I served in Congress. And there’s always going to be someone who has a different view, and we accept that. We have spent enormous numbers of hours up there — I do. Secretary Powell does. Others in the administration, briefing Senators, briefing House members, briefing staff members. And overwhelmingly they’ve been appreciative of those briefings and felt that they were helpful. We’ve sent up intelligence briefing people on a regularly weekly basis. I think probably there’s been more information back and forth in this conflict during Iraq and Afghanistan than in any conflict in the history of the country.
Now, when people are having their constituents killed, and they see things happening that worry them, understandably they’re going to be worried and concerned about it, and I accept that. And these are tough issues. These are not easy issues. And the fact that there are a variety of views in Congress simply reflects the country. There are a variety of views in the country. And that’s understandable.”

This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.

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Rumsfeld: Did He Underestimate The Intensity Of The Resistance? (Small – 2 MB)
Tim Russert:
“Did you underestimate the intensity of the resistance?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“I don’t know. You know, I don’t know that we — you don’t sit down and make a calibration that the resistance will lead to X numbers of Iraqis being killed per week, or that so many coalition people being wounded per week. That isn’t the kind of calibration you make. What you do is you say, here’s what you have to do to prevail. You have got to get the sovereignty transferred over to the Iraqi people, you have got to get the essential services going, and the economy on a path upward. And you’ve got to get the security responsibility transferred to the Iraqi people. That’s — because it’s their country. We’re not going to provide security in their country over a sustained period of time.
So we’ve gone from zero to 100,000 Iraqis providing security in that country, and our plan calls for us to go over 200,000 by next year.”

The question mark’s there because Rummy actually yes “no” and then later “yes.”
This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.

Complete Video and Photos

Rumsfeld: Saddam No Longer A Threat? (Small – 4 MB)
Tim Russert:
“The New York Times reports that senior administration officials say that Saddam is playing a significant role in coordinating and directing attacks, and that he is the catalyst for what is going on now.”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“I don’t know what — how to take the word “catalyst.” I don’t doubt for a minute that his being alive gives encouragement to the Baathists and the regime murderers that you see in those tapes killing people.”
Tim Russert:
“He may be directing the resistance?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“If he’s — I think he’s alive. I think he’s probably in Iraq. He’s probably in northern Iraq, and he undoubtedly has ways to communicate, imperfect ways, but probably by couriers, with some other people. Is he masterminding some major activity? Difficult to know, but unlikely. Is he involved? Possibly.”
Tim Russert:
“He’s still a threat?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“Personally, no. No. I mean, is it a threat to have released 100,000 criminals in a country with 23 million people? You bet. Is it a threat to have foreign terrorists coming across the borders? You bet. Is it a threat to have the leftovers of the Feyadeen Saddam and the murderers of Saddam Hussein’s regime the Baathists who benefited from his regime? Sure, it’s a threat. And there’s a lot of them, and there’s a lot of weapons in that country. There are weapons caches all over the country. So is that a danger for people in Iraq? Yes.”

This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.

Complete Video and Photos
Rumsfeld: What He Meant By His Memo (Small – 7 MB)




Tim Russert:
“Let me turn to your memo of October 16th, which has been leaked, and share it with our viewers and ask you to talk about it.”
(Russert reading from memo) ” ‘With respect to global terrorism, the record since September 11th seems to be: “We care having mixed results with Al Qaida…” Today we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas’ the schools ‘and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?… It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.’ ”
” ‘Don’t know if we are winning or losing’ ??”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“Let me explain that. It’s not that we don’t know if we’re winning or losing in Iraq or Afghanistan. We know what’s happening there. The point I was making is this. If there are 90 nations engaged in the global war on terrorism, and if they’re out arresting, capturing, killing terrorists. If they’re out there putting pressure on their bank accounts, making it harder for them to raise money, making it harder for them to transfer money, making it harder for terrorists to move across borders. All of which is true. Good progress is being made.
The question is, that I posed, and I don’t know the answer, is how many new terrorists are being made. How many of these schools are being led by radical clerics and are teaching people that the thing they should do with their lives is to go out and kill innocent men, women and children to stop progress, to torture people, to prevent women from being involved in their country’s activities. How many schools are doing that and how many people are being produced by that? And the question I posed was: you can’t know in this battle of ideas how it’s coming out unless you have some metric to judge that and there isn’t such a metric. It doesn’t exist. Therefore, my point was in the memo, that I think we need, the world needs, to think about other things we can do to reduce the number of schools that teach terrorism. Not just continue (stops) we certainly have to continue doing what we’re doing in going after terrorists wherever the are, and capturing them and killing them. But I think we also have to think about how we, the world, not just the United States — this is something well beyond our country or the Department of Defense — how we reduce the number of people who are becoming terrorists in the world.”
Tim Russert:
“Win the hearts and minds.”
Donald Rumsfeld: (Nods)

Tim Russert asks a great question and Rummy manages to drop in a little disinformation about the non-existent connection between Al Queda and Iraq.
This is from the November 2, 2003 program of Meet the Press.
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Rumsfeld On Whether We’re Less Safe Since The Shrub War Started
(Small – 8 MB)
Tim Russert:
“Go back prior to the war in march, where the argument was being made that there was no need to go to war with Saddam Hussein. He’s in a box. He’s confined. We have sanctions. We have inspections. And then the Administration decided to go to war and opened up that box. And that America is now less safe — less secure, than we were prior to the invasion.”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“I think that that’s not correct. I would say America is more safe today. If you believe the intelligence, which successive administrations of both political parties did, and other governments in the world, that he was progressing with these programs and that this is a country who’s used the weapons before. That’s used them on its neighbors — used them on his own people. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the tapes more recently of what they do to their own people. Of cutting off people’s heads and cutting off their fingers and their hands, and pulling out their tongues and cutting them off — throwing them off three story buildings. This is a particularly vicious regime, Saddam’s regime.
It is true, we have terrific young men and women being killed and wounded today, as we did yesterday, and your heart goes out to their families and to their loved ones. But what they’re doing is important. What they’re doing is taking the battle to the terrorists. There are foreign terrorists coming in to Iraq. That’s true. We know that. We’ve captured two or three hundered of them from various countries.”
Tim Russert:
“Stop there. Would that have happened — would they have gone to Iraq but for the fact that we went in there?”
Donald Rumsfeld:
“Why sure. The Ansur al islam (sp) was already in Iraq. There were Al Quaeda already in Iraq. The Iraqis were engaged in terrorism themselves. They were giving $25,000 to suicide bombers’ families who would go in and kill innocent men, women and children. They are a part of that. And certainly, the work in Iraq is difficult. It’s tough. And it is gonna to take some time, but good progress is being made in many parts of the country…”