Rumsfeld concedes stronger insurgency, hits news reports
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld conceded yesterday that the insurgency in Iraq has been stronger than anticipated but also said the news media have focused on the war's growing body count rather than progress that has been achieved.
''To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks," Rumsfeld said in remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
He added, ''It's appropriate to note not only how many Americans have been killed -- and may God bless them and their families -- but what they died for or, more accurately, what they lived for."
Continuing recent Bush administration efforts to defend war policies, Rumsfeld said Americans should be optimistic about progress that has been made politically and militarily in Iraq, as that country prepares for next week's parliamentary election.
In a change of focus, Rumsfeld also aimed some of his remarks at the media for presenting a ''jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people."
The Iraqis, he said, are more upbeat about their country, their security forces are growing, and they are on the road to democracy.
Rumsfeld delivered his speech five days after President Bush released a strategy for victory in Iraq that was meant to better explain the US mission there.
The speech also came amid increasing discontent with the war among some members of Congress. More than half of Americans now say it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq, according to recent polls. Bush's approval on handling Iraq is at 37 percent, the lowest yet.
Pressure on the administration has grown as the number of US military deaths has surpassed 2,100. Rumsfeld said focusing on that number would be as misleading as concentrating on the large numbers of casualties at battles such as Iwo Jima during World War II -- without acknowledging the victories eventually achieved.
Rumsfeld acknowledged that the war has not gone according to plan, but said many things that were feared -- including destruction of oil fields -- have not happened.
