DoD News Briefing

NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense

DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Sunday, February 11, 2001
(Interview by Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday)

Snow: Well, if we don't have to worry about nuclear exchanges, why is missile defense important?
Rumsfeld: Well, I didn't say we don't have to worry about things. It isn't this or that. It's really a broader range of threats and concerns, and therefore a deterrence.
The goal isn't to win a war. The goal is to be so capable of winning a war that you don't have to fight it - that you dissuade and deter people from engaging in mischief that they otherwise might do.
Missile defense, it seems to me, is very reasonable. And what we know is that with the end of the Cold War, proliferation has spread these technologies and weapons of mass destruction around the globe. Any president, looking at his responsibility as commander-in-chief, would have to say that a policy that is designed to keep the American people totally vulnerable does not make much sense.
Snow: So the question is, was the missile defense plan adopted by President Clinton such a defensive scheme - one that keeps us vulnerable?
Rumsfeld: What I am going to be doing, and am doing, is to take a good hard look at all the different ways we can manage to deal with relatively small numbers of ballistic missiles, with weapons of mass destruction, regardless of where they come from, and regardless of whether it was accidental, or unintentional, or intentional. That's what this system is designed --
It threatens no one. And it should be of concern to no one, including the Russians or the Chinese, unless someone has an intention of doing damage to other people.
Snow: The president said during the campaign that he was going to offer amendments to the ABM Treaty, which as you pointed out, was signed with the Soviets in 1972.
Rumsfeld: Right.
Snow: It's been seen as the greatest bar to doing any large-scale or flexible missile defense. The president has said if the Russians would not accept the amendments, he would go ahead and serve notice that we're going to get out of the treaty and go ahead with missile defense. Is that still the administration position?
Rumsfeld: Well, the president's not changed his words or his mind. What we are going to do is reviewing the various ways that we can deal with this problem, making a recommendation to the president and his national security team.
And to the extent that it fits within, or doesn't fit within, the president and Secretary Powell then have to make judgments. And we'll have time to consult with our allies, and to consult with our friends around the world. And obviously, to engage in discussions with the Russians.
Snow: How soon should we begin deploying missile defense?
Rumsfeld: Well, it seems to missile defense ought to be deployed at that point where we have fashioned a program that makes the most sense for us and for our friends and allies. We're not in this alone. And second, that the technologies evolve in a way that we can be reasonably confident.
Now, the argument against every weapons system almost in history is - the first argument is that it cost too much. And the next argument is that it won't work. And the next argument is that it will work so well, that it will be destabilizing.
Well, we're hearing all of that now. But that would have been true of anything.
Snow: What do you mean? It would have been true of anything that - those arguments would have been --
Rumsfeld: - Those arguments, they would have made the same arguments against every weapon system known to man. So I don't particularly find them very valid.
Snow: President Reagan promised to share Strategic Defense Initiative technology with all countries. Will we share that technology? Will we make that offer to share it with other nations?
Rumsfeld: We certainly do - we already are working with several nations on the subject of missile defense. And obviously, you do not want major differences in the vulnerability of the United States and our allies in Western Europe, for example.