Our Generation's Challenge: The Global Struggle Against Extremism Oct 4, 2004 – By Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
A speech delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on Monday, October 4,
2004.
Thank you very much, Lou, ladies and gentlemen, Pete, David, Richard. It's
good to be back here, and as before it's a very full crowd in a small room,
tightly packed in. So I thank all of you for being here as well.
Now, last month we observed the third anniversary of the day that awakened
our country to a new world, a day that extremists killed so many innocent
men, women and children. Thursday will mark the third anniversary of the
commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom, when America resolved to take the
battle to the extremists, and we attacked the al Qaeda and Taliban in
Afghanistan. Three years into the global war on terror, some understandably
ask, "Is the world better off? Is our country safer?" They're fair questions,
and today I want to address them by taking a look at the last three years at
what the world looked like then, compared to what we find today, and what has
been accomplished, and to be sure what remains to be done.
It's been said that the global struggle against extremism will be the task of
a generation, a war that could go on for years -- I should say will likely go
on for years, much like the Cold War, which of course lasted for decades. We
look back at the Cold War now as a great victory for freedom, and indeed it
was. But the 50-year span of battle between the free world and the Soviet
empire was filled with division, uncertainty, self-doubt, setbacks and indeed
failures along the way as well as successes. Territories were seized, wars
were fought. There were many times when the enemy seemed to have the upper
hand. Remember when euro-communism was in vogue, when the West considered
withdrawing. I was ambassador to NATO in the early '70s and had to fly back
to testify against an amendment in the Senate to withdraw all of our troops
back in the '70s. And a lot of people from time to time over that long span
considered withdrawing from the struggle exhausted. The strategies varied --
from co-existence to containment to detente to confrontation. Alliances
wavered. In NATO there were disputes over diplomatic policy, weapons
deployments, military strategies, the stance against the Soviets.
In the 1960s, France pulled out of the military organization of NATO and
asked NATO out of France. In America, columnists and editorialists questioned
and doubted U.S. policies. There were vocal showings of support for communist
Russia, marches against military build-up, proposed freezes -- even instances
where American citizens saw their own government challenges as warmongers and
aggressors. Clearly many did not always take seriously the challenge posed by
communism or the Soviet appetite for empire. But our country, under leaders
of both political parties over a sustained period of time, and with our
allies, again of mixed political parties over time, showed perseverance and
resolve.
Year after year they fought for freedom. They dared to confront what many
thought might be an unbeatable foe, and eventually the Soviet regime
collapsed.
That lesson has to be relearned throughout the ages, it seems, the lesson
that weakness can be provocative. It can entice people into doing things they
otherwise would avoid, that a refusal to confront gathering dangers can
increase rather than reduce future peril. That while there are risks to
acting, to be sure, there also can be risks to not acting, and that victory
ultimately comes to those who are purposeful and steadfast. It's with those
lessons in mind that the president and a historic coalition of some 80 or 85
countries have sought to confront a new and perhaps even more dangerous
enemy, an enemy without a country or a conscience, and an enemy who seeks no
armistice or truce -- with us or with the civilized world.
From the outset of this conflict it was clear that our coalition had to go on
the offense against terrorists. The goals included the need to pursue
terrorists and their regimes that provide them aid and comfort, havens; to
establish relationships with new allies and bolster international coalitions
to prosecute the war; to improve considerably America's homeland defense; and
to advance freedom and democracy, and to work with moderate leaders to
undermine terrorism's ideological foundation.
In the last three years progress has been made in each of these areas. Four
years ago al Qaeda was already a growing danger well before 9/11. Terrorists
had been attacking American interests for years. The leader, Osama bin Laden,
was safe and sheltered in Afghanistan. His network was dispersed around the
world. Three years later, more than two thirds of al Qaeda's key members and
associates have been detained, captured or killed. Osama bin Laden is on the
run. Many of his key associates are behind bars or dead. His financial lines
have been reduced, but not closed down. And I suspect he spends a good deal
of every day avoiding being caught.
Once controlled by extremists, Afghanistan today is led by Hamid Karzai, who
is helping to lead the world in support of moderates against the extremists.
Soccer stadiums in Kabul, once used for public executions under the Taliban,
today are used for soccer.
Three years ago in Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his sons brutally ruled a nation
in the heart of the Middle East. Saddam was attempting regularly to kill
American air crews and British air crews that were enforcing the northern and
southern no-fly zones. He ignored more than a dozen U.N. Security Council
resolutions, and was paying some $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers
to encourage and reward them.
Three years later, Saddam Hussein is a prisoner awaiting trial by the Iraqis,
his sons are dead, most of his senior associates are in custody. Some 100,000
trained and equipped Iraqis now provide security for their fellow citizens.
Under the new prime minister, Mr. Allawi, and his team, Iraq is a new nation,
a nation determined to fight terrorists and build a peaceful society.
And Libya has gone from being a nation that sponsored terrorists and secretly
sought a nuclear capability to one that has renounced its illegal weapon
programs, and now says that it's ready to reenter the community of civilized
nations.
The rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network was
providing lethal assistance to nations such as Libya and North Korea today
has been exposed and dismantled, and is no longer in operation.
Pakistan three and a half or four years ago was close to the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan. Today under President Musharraf, Pakistan is working
effectively and closely with the global coalition against terrorism. Thanks
to the coalition, terrorist safe havens have been reduced, major training
camps have been eliminated. Their financial support structures have been
attacked and disrupted, and intelligence and military cooperation with
countries all around the world has dramatically increased.
NATO is now leading the International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan, and is helping to train Iraqi security forces. This is an
historic move for NATO. Not only is it out of the NATO treaty area, but it's
out of Europe this activity on their part. The U.N. has taken a role in
helping the free elections in both Afghanistan and Iraq, which are coming up
very soon in Afghanistan later this week, and we anticipate in Iraq in
January.
And over 60 countries have expressed support for an effort to halt the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Here at home the demands of the global war on terror have accelerated the
need to transform our armed forces, and to undertake an increasingly complex
array of missions around the world. We've increased the size of the active
duty army by about 30,000 troops, and we're reorganizing it into more agile,
lethal and deployable brigades with enough protection, fire power and
logistics assets to sustain themselves. And we're increasing the number of
these brigades from currently 33 to 43 or possibly 48 over the coming two and
a half to three years. We're re-training and re-structuring the active and
reserve components to achieve a more appropriate distribution of skill sets,
to improve the total force responsiveness to crises, and so that individual
Reservists and Guardsmen will mobilize less often for shorter periods of
time, and with somewhat more predictability.
We're increasing the ability of the branches of the armed services to work
seamlessly together. Joint operations are no longer an exception. They must
become the rule. Communications and intelligence activities have been
improved in the department. We've significantly expanded the capabilities and
missions of the special operations forces and much more.
Since the global war on terror began, we have sought to undercut the
extremists' efforts to attract new recruits. The world has been divided
between regions where freedom and democracy have been nurtured and other
areas where people have been abandoned to dictatorship or tyranny. Yet today
the talk on the street in Baghdad and Kabul is about coming elections and
self-government. In Afghanistan over 10 million people have registered to
vote in this month's election. They estimate that some 41.4 percent of them
are women. Iraq has an interim constitution that includes a bill of rights
and an independent judiciary. There are municipal councils in almost every
major city and most towns and villages and provincial councils for the
provinces.
Iraqis now are among those allowed to say and write and watch and listen to
whatever they want, whenever they want. And I sense that governments and
people in the Middle East are taking note of that. Have there been setbacks
in Afghanistan and Iraq? You bet. It is often on some bad days not a pretty
picture at all. In fact, it can be dangerous and ugly. But the road from
tyranny to freedom has never been peaceful or tranquil. On the contrary, it's
always been difficult and dangerous. It was difficult for the United States.
It was difficult with respect to Germany and Japan and Italy.
The enemy cannot defeat the coalition in a conventional war on any
battlefield. But they don't seek conventional war. Their weapons are terror
and chaos, and they want us to believe that the coalition cannot win; that
the free Iraqi and Afghan governments cannot win; that the fight is not worth
it; that the effort will be too hard and too ugly. They attack any sort of
hope or progress in an effort to try to undermine morale. They are convinced
that if they can win the battle of perception -- and they are very good at
managing perceptions -- that we will lose our will and toss it in. I believe
they are wrong. Failure in Afghanistan or Iraq would exact a terrible toll.
It would embolden the extremists and make the world a far more dangerous
place. These are difficult times.
From Baghdad, Kabul, Madrid, Bali, the Philippines, the call to arms has been
sounded and the outcome of this struggle will determine the nature of our
world for some decades to come. Our enemies will not be controlled, or
contained or wished away. They do seek to enslave, and they have shown that
they are willing to die to achieve their goals. The deaths of innocent people
are not incidental in this war. Innocent people indeed are in fact their
targets, and they will willingly kill hundreds and thousands more.
The world has gasped at the brutality of the extremists -- the hundreds of
children in Russia who were killed or wounded on their first day of school;
the commuters blown up in the trains in Madrid; innocents murdered in a night
club in Bali; the cutting off of heads on television. And should these
enemies acquire the world's more dangerous weapons, more lethal weapons --
and they are seeking them, to be sure -- the lives of hundreds of thousands
could be at stake.
There have been costs, and there will be more. More than 1,000 U.S. soldiers,
men and women, have died, killed or in accidents in Iraq, and some number
more since the global war on terror began. Every loss is deeply felt. It is
in freedom's defense that our country has had the benefit of these wonderful
volunteers deployed, these the most courageous among us. And whenever freedom
advances, America is safer.
And amid the losses, amid the ugliness, the car bombings, the task is to
remain steadfast. Consider the kind of world we would have if the extremists
were to prevail.
Today, as before, the hard work of history falls to our country, to our
coalition, to our people. We've been entrusted with the gift of freedom. It's
ours to safeguard. It's ours to defend. And we can do it, knowing that the
great sweep of human history is for freedom, and that is on our side.
Our Generation's Challenge: The Global Struggle Against Extremism
