Rumsfeld: I think the first time I met Pete Peterson -- I think it was in the basement of Chuck Percy's house in my congressional district, and they were trying to show a 35-millimeter film. Pete had succeeded Chuck Percy, I believe, as the CEO of Bell and Howell, and neither one of them could get it to work. (Laughter.) Is that right? Oh, I think so.
Well, mentioning wage and price controls, I had no idea this would turn vicious immediately, but -- (laughter) -- hi, John. How are you?
I remember that day. George Shultz came to me, and he said, "Don, the president and I would like you to run the wage and price controls." And I said, "George, I don't believe in them." He said, "I know, Don. That's why we want you to do it." (Laughter.) (Chuckles.)
When it was over, I thought to myself: Hm. It was H.L. Mencken who said, "For every human problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." (Laughter.) And we found it.
Well, I thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to talk a bit about the challenges that Pete mentioned in transition from tyranny to a free and civil society. The problems are real, to be sure -- looting; crime; mobs storming buildings; breakdown of government structures and institutions that maintained civil order; rampant inflation caused by the lack of a stable currency; supporters of the former regime roaming the streets, countryside, whose fate has yet to be determined; regional tensions between the North and the South; delays, bickering, false starts in an effort to establish a new government.
If these problems sound familiar, they should. They are the historians' descriptions of the conditions here in America in 1783, in the period after our nation's War for Independence.
Those early years of our young republic were characterized by chaos and confusion. There was crime and looting, and a lack of organized police force. The issue of competing paper currencies by various states led to inflation and popular discontent. There were uprisings, such as the Shays Rebellion, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. There were regional tensions between the mercantile New England and the agrarian South. There were crown loyalists to deal with, many of whom had fought against the Continental Army.
And our first effort at a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed, and it took eight years of contentious debate before we finally adopted a Constitution and inaugurated our first president.
And unlike the people of Iraq, we did not have to face the added challenge of trying to recover from the trauma of decades of denial and brutal rule by a dictator like Saddam Hussein.
The point is this: no nation in memory has made the transition from tyranny to a free society that's been immune to the difficulties and challenges of taking that path, not even our own. As Thomas Jefferson put it, "We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed."
It's now seven weeks since the liberation of Iraq, and the challenges are there. Just as it took time and patience, trial and error and years of hard work before the founders got it right, so, too, it will take time and patience and trial and error and hard work for the Iraqi people to try to overcome the challenges that they face. This much is clear: We, the United States, has a stake in their success; for if Iraq, with its size and its capabilities, its resources and its history, is able to move towards a path of representative democracy, however bumpy the road may be, then the impact in the region and, indeed, in the world could be dramatic. Iraq could conceivably become a model; proof that a moderate Muslim state can succeed in the battle against extremism taking place in the Muslim world today.
The Iraqi people have a foundation on which to build the peace. At least in part because of the speed and the skill and the execution of the war plan by General Franks and his team, some bad things did not happen. The vast majority of those oil fields were not destroyed, and the country's oil wealth is intact for the Iraqi people and environmental disaster was prevented. Think back to what Kuwait looked like after the Gulf War. Key bridges and roads and rail lines were not destroyed, dams were not broken, villages were not flooded. The infrastructure of the country is largely intact. There were no large masses of refugees fleeing across borders into neighboring countries, as there were a decade ago. The former regime did not attack its neighbors with Scud missiles, as they did a decade ago. And the coalition took great care to protect the lives of innocent civilians, as well as the important holy sites.
So, unlike Europe after World War II, for the most part, the people of Iraq do not have to rebuild from this recent war as they work to rebuild their country and society after decades of denial and brutal dictatorship.
We are committed to helping the Iraqi people get on a path to a free society. We do not have an American template that we plan to impose on them. Iraqis will have to figure out how to build a free nation in a manner that reflects their unique culture and tradition. What the president has outlined are some broad principles that are critical if Iraq's transition from tyranny is to succeed: That Iraq be a single country which does not support terrorists, does not threaten its neighbors or the world with weapons of mass terror, or threaten its diverse population with repression; that it have a government that respects and protects minorities, provides opportunities for the people through some sort of market economic arrangements, and justice through an independent judiciary and rule of law.
These are not solely American principles, nor are they exclusively Western principles. They are principles that seem to be common to most of the world's free society. The coalition will seek out Iraqis who support those principles generally and who desire to have a role in their country's future. And those who oppose those principles, whose agenda is to replace Saddam Hussein's tyranny with some other form of dictatorship, will be opposed by the coalition.
As we move forward to help Iraqis build a free nation, there are some guidelines that the coalition is following. And let me set out some of them. Some of them I believe you saw in the paper today. But I'll be very brief.
First, while our goal is to put functional and political authority in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible, coalition provisional authority -- this is Ambassador Jerry Bremer -- has the responsibility to fill the vacuum of power in a country that has been under a dictatorship for decades, by asserting temporary authority over the country. The coalition will do that.
Second, the coalition will provide security. Among the immediate objectives are the restoration of law and order for the Iraqi people, and the provision of essential services -- water, medicine, food. The coalition is hiring and training Iraqi police, and will be prepared to use force to impose order, as required, because without order, little else is possible in any country.
Third, the coalition will maintain as many security forces in Iraq as is necessary, and will keep them there for as long as is necessary. Already, some 39 nations have offered stabilization forces or other needed assistance, and that number is growing every week. Coalition countries, together with Iraqis, will seek to provide a secure environment so that that Iraqi people will be able to take charge of their country as soon as possible.
Next, the coalition will work to improve the circumstances of the Iraqi people. Already, electric services in the north and south are as good as or better than they have been in 12 years. And the power situation in Baghdad is improving, albeit slowly. It's apparently a fragile system. It was not destroyed by the coalition bombing. Apparently, a few random bombs hit elements of it and created an instability in the system which the best of the Corps of Engineers and the best of the contractors -- I believe it's Bechtel -- are having trouble getting back to a circumstance that would be considered better than prior to this most recent conflict.
The coalition is working to achieve rapid improvements in other public services. We will work to engage the Iraqi people as rapidly as possible, and give Iraqis leadership roles in the reconstruction effort, for it's their responsibility to rebuild their own country.
Fifth, in staffing ministries and positioning Iraqis in ways that will increase their influence, the coalition will work to have Iraqis involved as early as possible so that they can develop and explain the goals and directions to the Iraqi people. Only as Iraqis are engaged, and responsible for, and explaining and leading their fellow citizens, will the broader public support develop that is, in the last analysis, going to be essential for the security of the country.
Sixth, the coalition will work with forward-looking Iraqis and actively oppose the old regime's enforcers -- the Ba'ath Party leaders, the Fedayeen Saddam, and other instruments of repression -- and make clear that it will eliminate the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. Those who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity will be tracked down and brought to justice. De-Ba'athification may cause inefficiencies; indeed, it very likely will cause inefficiencies, but it is necessary to removing the pervasive fear from the Iraqi society.
Next, Iraq will need to find ways to heal the wounds the Ba'athists inflicted on their society. The experiences of Eastern Europe and other countries can help to inform this process.
Eighth, market systems will be favored, not Stalinist command systems, which if anyone has been to Baghdad recently, you can see what the effects of that system were. The infrastructure is decayed very much the way Eastern Europe was decayed after decades of Communist rule. The coalition will favor activities that will begin to diversify the Iraqi economy beyond an oil economy. The coalition will encourage moves to privatize state-owned enterprises; and it will work to provide enterprise-driven economic development opportunities for the Iraqi people.
Ninth, the coalition provisional authority is developing a plan for the Iraqi oil industry that's based on transparency. Iraq's oil wealth will be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Tenth, whenever possible, contracts for work in Iraq will go to those who will use Iraqi workers, to countries that assisted the Iraqi people's liberation, that provide assistance to Iraq's recovery, and also to neighboring countries so as to try to contribute to a greater regional economic development which will accelerate Iraq's economic recovery.
Eleventh, countries and international organizations, including the U.N. and nongovernmental organizations, are being welcomed to assist in Iraq. They can and are already playing an important role. The Coalition Provisional Authority will work closely with them to maintain a focus of effort.
Twelfth, assistance from Iraq's neighbors will be welcomed. Conversely, interference in Iraq by its neighbors or their proxies will not be permitted. Indeed, Iran should be on notice that efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran's image will be aggressively put down.
Finally, in assisting the Iraqi people, the U.S. will play its role but should not be considered the first and only donor of funds.
The American people have already made a significant investment to liberate Iraq, and they stand ready to contribute to the rebuilding efforts. But when funds are needed, the coalition will turn first to Iraqi regime funds that exist in Iraq -- and we keep finding more and more; I think they found another 1,142 gold bars yesterday in a truck -- we'll rely on seized frozen Iraqi assets in the U.S. and other countries -- these are assets of the Saddam Hussein regime -- and international donors, many of whom are already assisting, as well as the Iraqi funds in the oil-for-food programs, which belong to the Iraqi people.
The transition to democracy will take time. It will not be a smooth road. In Central and Eastern Europe, the process has taken time, but it is succeeding. And trial and error and experimentation will be a part of the process. The efforts will not be perfect. Course corrections will be needed. I'm sure they'll all be pointed to and viewed with alarm, but we'll survive that. And the effort will require a modest amount of patience by all involved if it's to succeed.
It's now been seven weeks in a nation that suffered a dictatorship for decades, that saw tens of thousands of criminals released -- the estimate is something in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand criminals were let out of these prisons, and they're roaming the streets -- and where many of the regime's enforcers are still at large.
When the army was approached, we found that a number of the units fought and then surrendered. We found that other units just took off their uniforms, left their equipment and went into the countryside. So, there are folks that are still out there who obviously do not wish the coalition forces well.
The eventual political outcome will be decided by the Iraqi people, within the broad principles of rule of law, minority rights, individual liberty, and something approximating representative democracy. And one ought not to expect, however, that
