Rumsfeld, Franks before Senate Cmt over Iraq war

(9 Jul 2003) 1. Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks sitting before Senate Armed Services Committee 2. Shots of hearing 3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary: "There seems to be a widely held impression that regime loyalists are operating freely throughout the country, attacking coalition forces at will. That's clearly not the case. Large portions of Iraq are stable." 4. Cutaway of committee 5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary: "At this moment, coalition forces are engaged in operations to deal with the threats in these areas. Indeed, a number of recent incidents in those regions are the result of offensive operations by the coalition. Cases where the coalition forces have been seeking out and engaging pockets of enemy fighters. Mr. Chairman, the problem is real, but it is being dealt with in an orderly and forceful fashion by coalition forces." 6.Cutaway of committee members listening to testimony 7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary: "Major combat operations ended less than 10 weeks ago. The Iraqi regime had 12 years to conceal its programmes, to move materials, hide documents, disperse equipment, develop mobile production facilities and sanitise known W-M-D sites, including four years with no U-N weapons inspectors on the ground. Needless to say, uncovering those programmes will take time. The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on September 11th." 8. Cutaways of hearing 9. SOUNDBITE: (English) US Senator Carl Levin, Democrat-Michigan: "I'm just curious as to whether or not you've determined as a policy maker, how the facts and the falsity of that claim of a uranium sale to Iraq from Africa remained in the bowels of the agency for nine months?" 10. Cutaway of Committee Chairman John Warner listening 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary: "I must say that as someone who reads intelligence every day, as you do, I find that corrections are being made fairly continuously, that you review a week's worth of intel and two months later, they come back and say 'Well, we said this on this date, but we have new information that suggests this or that,' so the fact that the facts change from time to time with respect to specifics does not surprise me or shock me at all. It's to be expected. It's part of the intelligence world that we live with, it is uncertain and less-than-perfect knowledge." 12. Wide shot of hearing STORYLINE: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday that it was wrong to believe that insurgents were "operating freely" in Iraq. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld said the attacks against US forces have been concentrated in and around Baghdad, but he said, "large portions of Iraq are stable." With an increasing number of US forces being killed and wounded, Rumsfeld acknowledged that "the problem is real." But he insisted it was being dealt with in an orderly and forceful fashion by coalition troops. On the issue of Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld said that finding them would take time. But he also told the Committee that the administration decided to use military force in Iraq because the information about the threat of Saddam's regime was seen from a different perspective after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The White House acknowledged on Tuesday that that intelligence turned out to be wrong. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...