Ten years removed from the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed fears that cuts to the defense budget will hinder the nation?s ability to react to a similar crisis.
Speaking Sunday on CNN?s ?Fareed Zakaria GPS,? Rumsfeld recalled the day of the attacks - ?And then the Pentagon shook and it was clear that America had been attacked?- but also looked to the future of the nation?s defenses.
Continue Reading?Let me make a comment about 9/11 and today. Today, with a debt crisis and a deficit crisis, we are about ready to make the same mistake we?ve made after World War II, after Vietnam and Korea and then after the Cold War ? pare down our intelligence, cut the budgets in the Defense Department and think we can get away with it,? he said.
He added: ?If we make that mistake again, it seems to me, we?re doing it in an environment that?s notably different. The margin for error for political leadership in our country is different today, because of the lethality of weapons. And if we do what it looks like the Congress is going to do, think they can balance the budget off the Pentagon, I think it will be a tragic mistake for the country.?
When pressed by Zakaria as to whether there was any room for cuts in the budget - ?We?re still spending more than the rest of the world put together,? the host noted. Rumsfeld would not concede the point.
?When I went to Washington, when I was in the Navy and when I went to Washington, Eisenhower was president and then Kennedy and then Johnson. We were spending 10 percent of GDP on defense. What are we spending today? 4 percent. 3, 4, 5, in that range,? Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld, while praising President Barack Obama for having eliminated Osama bin Laden, also looked back to one of his GOP predecessors for a better example of presidential leadership:
?I mean Dwight Eisenhower had the phrase right. It?s peace through strength. It?s been a deterrent. Have those capabilities that dissuade people from thinking they can do things they ought not to do. Weakness is provocative. And we don?t want to provoke people.?
The former defense secretary also criticized both the Obama and Bush administrations for not doing a good job of explaining the threat posed by radical Islamists:
?We don?t want to be seen as against a religion and so the Bush administration didn?t do a good job,? Rumsfeld said.
?We were careful and words were always sensitive and we never ? you can?t win a battle of ideas, a competition of ideas, unless you describe an enemy, say who it is, say what?s wrong with it. Say what we do and why that?s what?s right,? he said.
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