Why Should We Trust The Government On Iraq?

I was mentioning to a gathering at Barry's Pizza a while back that one of the things I enjoy most about Secretary Rumsfeld's press conferences is that there's almost always a mini civics lesson at some point. Yesterday's press conference was a good example. Here's a question, followed by the Secretary's answer:

Q: The overarching philosophical issue on the intelligence sharing. What the administration is doing right now is essentially asking the American public to support a possible war with Iraq that could be extremely costly in terms of money, American lives, Iraqi civilians, environmental issues. And reasonable people do disagree, including General Zinni and General Schwarzkopf, as to what kind of threat is posed right now. And apparently, the administration is sitting on some intelligence that it believes weights the issue in the opposite direction.

And the question I want to ask you is, why should we trust the administration on this, sight-unseen, with its intelligence? Because I understand that much of it won't be shared with us.

There is a long tradition, and I think a very healthy one, of American people not trusting government but, rather, saying, prove it to us before you ask us to make this question.

And please don't say, you know, "It's either trust or trust Saddam Hussein," because I don't think that's a fair decision -- or a fair question to ask.

Rumsfeld: Did you think I was going to answer it that way?

Q: Actually, Wolfowitz did answer the question that way last week, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz.

Rumsfeld: And he's not here to defend himself.

(Laughter.)

Q: (Chuckling) No. Just thought I'd broadside --

Rumsfeld: Why should the American people trust their government, is the question, I guess. The -- first of all, they don't have to trust their government blindly. The leaders have the responsibility to persuade, and persuasion means you marshal facts and you marshal argumentation, and the combination of the two results in persuasion.

It seems to me that the logic pattern that the President went through, and that I have outlined somewhat differently here today, and the enormous amount of facts that exist, force people to say, "What do I think about that?" And they don't have to trust, they can come to their own conclusion; indeed, everyone must come to their own conclusion.

We have a constitutional system where we elect leadership and we put responsibility and authority in their hands, subject to a host of checks and balances. The Congress has voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, joint resolution. The United Nations voted unanimously in the Security Council for Resolution 1441, citing the Iraqi regime as being in material breach, and indicating that a false declaration would be further material breach, and that lack of cooperation would be still further material breach.

And it's the kind of thing that everyone would love when they make a decision -- to have perfect knowledge. When you get married, or what college you're going to go to, if you're going to go to college, or what you're going to do on a tough business issue or a personal issue, you almost never have personal -- perfect knowledge. It's not the way the world works. And if things -- the only way you get personal [perfect] knowledge is to wait until Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. That's when you get perfect knowledge. That's after the fact. And after the fact in the 21st century, in the world of weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people, after the fact is too late.

[Posted at 17:11 CST on 01/30/03] [Link]