LANGEVIN: Let me just thank you, gentlemen, for being here. It's been a long day.
I share my colleagues' outrage at this entire situation. It has done an enormous amount of damage to the credibility of this nation, and it's going to take us years to recover from it. It's done great damage to us achieving the mission in Iraq, and I have been of the opinion that the success in Iraq is by no means assured, although we know that failure is not an option, and this is going to make it measurably more difficult to achieve the mission of establishing a functioning democracy in Iraq.
What I want to know as we go forward from this point forward, how do we repair the damage to our credibility as a nation on the issue of human rights? How do we criticize other nations on their human rights violations?
How does the president of the United States speak with credibility on human right violations of other nations when he's meeting with foreign leaders? What advice are you going to give him to be able to do that with any sense of credibility, especially in the Arab world on this particular issue and winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people?
The overwhelming majority -- I want to be on record, too, as acknowledging the overwhelming majority of our men and women in uniform are doing an outstanding job. I've traveled to Iraq and I had the opportunity to visit with our soldiers and I know the pride that they share in the professionalism of their service and their dedication to the mission.
They've been tarnished by all this. They're owed an apology not only by the individuals who committed these acts, but the way this whole thing was bungled in terms of its handling -- informing the world and particularly the Congress, because it could have been done better.
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LANGEVIN: The credibility question, where do we go from here? How do we restore our credibility on human rights, Mr. Secretary? How do you advise the president on this issue of restoring our credibility on human rights when we come to criticize other nations?
RUMSFELD: Well, when you've got 2.4 (million?) men and women in uniform -- active duty, Guard, Reserve, Selective Reserve -- they're doing a lot of wonderful things in the world. Some people did some perfectly terrible things. What happened after that? We announced it. It became public. We're having an open process. We're prosecuting the people who have done something wrong.
The world is seeing what a democracy does. The world is seeing how people who care about human rights behave.
This isn't a pattern or practice or a policy of the government as it was under Saddam Hussein. This is something totally different.
And how do we always get from one step to the next step? We live our lives as best we can, knowing we're imperfect, mistakes get made, people do bad things to people.
We see it in every state in the union, every year -- murders, rapes.
How do we restore our credibility? What we do is, we get up the next day and try to live our lives better, and we try to do a better job in government and public service. And over time truth wins out.
We have a free, open system. We've got wonderful people in this country. We're not an evil society. There's not something bad about America. America is not what's wrong with the world.
And the overwhelming majority of the people in the world know that.
I mean, why do people line up to get into this country, year after year after year? I read all this stuff -- "people hate us, people don't like us" -- the fact of the matter is, people line up to come into this country every year.
Because it's better here than other places, and because they respect the fact that we respect human beings.
And we'll get by this. I don't like it any more than you do.
MYERS: Let me just talk about the military angle of that.
We've got 37,000 folks in Korea, been there for 50 years. We've got 47,000 troops in Japan, been there for over 50 years. Over 100,000 troops in Germany.
They want us there. Occasionally, a soldier, sailor, airman, Marine missteps and we work our way through it because it's been a long, long relationship.
The world knows that the U.S. military is the best-trained, the best-led and carries American values wherever they go. And they appreciate that.
And as despicable as these events are, and as disgusting as they are to us, the fact that we're having this hearing, the fact that democracy's working, the fact that this has been in the open, the fact that as soon as we knew about it, two days later we're in front of the press, the free press, and say, "We think this may have happened. We're going to do an investigation, and we think it's going to be bad."
The fact that we did that earns the world's respect. Certainly there are going to be some setbacks, but most of the people that we've been working with in the world understand what this armed forces is about.
And I frankly think that we'll work our way through this just fine, because 99.9999 percent of the folks that serve on active duty -- and I didn't do the math on Iraq, I was going to -- but it would be whatever it is, is not going to be dispersed by six people. It will not happen.
I just came fro a NATO meeting. I talked to the major contributors to our operations in Iraq, the other countries. They were firm in their resolve. This incident was not lessening their resolve. They want to get the mission done. And I thanked them for that.
But they're with us. They know us.
The world knows us. We're probably in 140 countries today doing -- or this past year, we've been in 140 or 150 countries doing training operations and other things. They know us. They know the true American service men and women, and they trust us and they respect us.
Byrd is the democratic WV senator, but it looks like this is the question you were looking for the answer to. Kennedy was representing RI in the questioning.
