Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers are giving a news briefing. Rumsfeld acknowledges the anguish of the families of victims and sees the forthcoming 9/11 commission report as an opportunity (rough transcript):
That commission has a chance to craft recommendations that can help improve security and help Americans understand the long-term goals of the War on Terror.
Some important issues: Can we afford to take so long to clear and place officers for national security? How can we strengthen access to compartmentalized information? How can we better wage the battle of ideas?
Would you call Richard Clarke a liar? asks a reporter:
Certainly not. I don't know the gentleman well, and I would not say that. One thing, though:
He [Clarke] said he saw me coming out of a meeting one day, and I looked distracted. Well, I wasn't AT that meeting. So people can be mistaken.
A reporter says Rumsfeld's answer to a question re re-arrangement of military posts around the world (?) is too long:
Too long for you. I don't do bumper stickers.
Re war plans:
When I first came back to the Pentagon, I was concerned that the war plan was old. It was stale. Some parts had been formed five years previously. I said okay, Saturday morning, brief me on the assumptions. And we made a decision that there was something about the contingency-plan system that did not fit the 21st century. Things were now moving faster than they had in an earlier period. We had to have a cycle that could look at these plans in a shorter cycle of time. We had to do it in an iterative process.
We have changed the process and the speed with which they're done. We grabbed the Iraq plan and a lot of other plans and changed them.
Myers clarifies an important concept some members of the press don't seem to get:
There's a lot of difference between planning for various contingencies and the decision to execute a plan.
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