Rumsfeld Claims Pentagon More Open to Media

By: Greg Mitchell One day after his boss, President Bush, failed to take any questions from the floor after his speech to 1,000 newspaper editors and publishers in Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the same ballroom, before much the same audience, responded to nine queries, although most were not difficult ones.

The final question, for example, asked him what he thought of the new CD of his press briefings set to music. "Someone gave me a copy," he revealed. "Silly thing. A woman with a perfectly good voice singing selections from my press conferences. Now if that doesn't tell you something about the state of our world ..."

In a more serious vein, asked about rumors that the military draft may be coming back, Rumsfeld said he knew of no one in the government "who feels it would be appropriate or necessary. ... It would not be useful to do it at the present time." He insisted that the two million or so personnel, active or reserved, were enough if they can "manage this force better."

Rumsfeld stoutly defended the administration's efforts in Iraq, and was not asked to reflect on the quality of the Pentagon's preparations, a year ago, for the occupation that has turned increasingly violent, or the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. He chided the press for putting too much focus on "the bomb throwers" in Iraq and not enough on "the vast majority who are not rioting."

He also denied that the closing of a newspaper in Iraq sympathetic with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr helped set off the current uprising there.

Rumsfeld appeared at a luncheon for members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America, who are holding their annual conventions here this week.

On Wednesday, President Bush answered just three questions, and they were pre-submitted. Rumseld called on editors and publishers scattered around the ballroom.

At the start of the speech, Rumsfeld testified that he felt he belonged in this setting because he "sold newspapers in Illinois, Washington state, North Carolina and California" long ago.

He drew laughs by saying that those in government should show more appreciation for the "daily miracle" the press performs: "You do something rare in Washington -- you actually produce something. Imagine if the government had to put out a daily newspaper!"

Claiming that his Defense Department has been more open than any previously, he cited his 350 press briefings: "It's unusual, it's exhausting, it's risky."

Clearly drawing an analogy, involving the current President, Rumsfeld recalled that President Harry S. Truman was "ridiculed" by pundits in the press but the public eventually learned the truth about Truman's good intentions and programs -- and he managed to win re-election in 1948.