Washington - US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld late Wednesday reversed
a decision to skip a public hearing on Capitol Hill and said he will testify at
a session on the Iraq war.
US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
listens to questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Wednesday,
Aug. 2, 2006. [AP Photo] |
The move came after hours of criticism and pressure from US Senate Democrats
who urged him to come before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer
questions about the administration's Iraq policies. Earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld
had said that his crowded calendar did not allow him to be present for the
meeting Thursday morning, but he agreed to attend a private, classified briefing
in the afternoon with the entire Senate.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters earlier Wednesday, Rumsfeld suggested that
complaints about his decision could be politically motivated.
"Let's be honest: Politics enters into these things, and maybe the person
raising the question is interested in that," said Rumsfeld, without identifying
anyone. The defense secretary said he had testified in the past and was not
reluctant to face off against some of the committee's more vocal war critics,
including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
No reason for the change was provided by the Pentagon. The committee said the
Pentagon called and said the secretary would now be testifying,
Rumsfeld's initial plan not to testify had drawn protests committee
Democrats, who said much had changed in the six months since he last testified
and took questions from the committee. The request for his appearance came from
the committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and the top Democrat, Sen. Carl
Levin of Michigan.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's eleventh-hour decision to reverse course and appear at
tomorrow's open Armed Services Committee hearing is the right one," said Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who had sent him a letter urging him to testify.
Kennedy had also said that Rumsfeld should attend the hearing "to explain and
defend his policies in full public view tomorrow."
Rumsfeld's relations with Congress have been testy at times and he has
occasionally resisted testifying publicly on controversial subjects, including
the debate over whether high-level officials should be held accountable for the
prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John
Abizaid, chief of US Central Command, also are testifying Thursday.
Rumsfeld last appeared before the committee on Feb. 7, when he and Pace were
questioned about the war's strain on the military. He has testified at
appropriations hearings, however, and has met with lawmakers in a number of
classified briefings.
In the last six months, the number of US troops in Iraq has dipped but now is
back up to about 133,000, as part of an effort to quell the violence in Baghdad.
The total could exceed 135,000 in the weeks and months ahead.
In other comments, Rumsfeld and Pace, citing intelligence concerns,
sidestepped a question about whether they have seen evidence that Iran is
supporting Hezbollah in its fight against Israel.
Rumsfeld said it is evident that Hezbollah is using Iranian weapons, adding,
"Hezbollah's a terrorist organization, and Iran's their principal financial and
military supplier and supporter. The linkage is tight."
Rumsfeld also offered an explanation for why as many as two-thirds of the
Army's brigades and many National Guard units are rated not ready for combat. He
said the Pentagon is wrestling with standards that would best describe the
condition of the units. And he noted that highly experienced units coming home
from Iraq leave a lot of equipment behind and as a result are considered not
combat ready.
"The Army today is vastly better than it was two, four, six or eight years
ago," he said. "It has much more equipment, much better equipment, and it's
better trained and more experienced."
He and Pace also said that funding to address the National Guard's needs,
which equal about $21 billion through 2011, has been included in budget plans
over the next five years.
