Rumsfeld on US troops in Iraq, adds Bush STILL, WH comment
(8 Apr 2004) SHOTLIST APTN Arlington, Virginia 1. Close-up Rumsfeld and Myers walking into briefing room 2. Wide view reporters 3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defence "We are facing a test of will and we will meet that test. It is also a test of the will of the Iraq people who seek freedom and the chance to live a decent life and we are determined to prevail." 4. Cutaway of reporters 5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defence "Because we are in the midst of a major troop rotation we have a planned increase in the number of US troops in the Centcom area of responsibility and indeed in Iraq. We are taking advantage of that increase and we will likely be managing the pace of the redeployments to allow those seasoned troops with experience and relationships with the local populations to see the current situation through. This much is certain, we will take robust military action as necessary to deal with the challenges to Iraq''s transition to sovereignity. There are those who don''t want Iraq to be free. They are trying to stop progress towards freedom and self government. We will not allow them to succeed." 6. Side view of Myers at map 7. Close-up map showing arrows 8. SOUNDBITE: (English) General Richard Myers, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff "The green arrows depict as accurately as we can those thugs and gangs that would associate themselves with Sadr. The number of arrows do not indicate their strength. This is not a lot of people. But this is where we think we have to conduct operations, not just the United States, but others to conduct operations to deal with this particular operation as well." 9. Myers speaking 10. Cutaway reporters 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defence "The arrows that were up there are really relatively small numbers of people. You say pitched battles. The number of people that are involved in those battles are relatively small and there is nothing like an army or a major large elements of hundreds of people trying to overthrow or to change the situation. You have a mixture of a small number of terrorists, a small number of militias, coupled with some small demonstrations and some lawlessness and it is a serious problem. The problem is being worked and General Abizaid and General Sanchez and his team have high confidence." 12. Side view of briefing 13. SOUNDBITE: (English) General Richard Myers, Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff "It is certainly not a popular uprising or a movement supported by the majority of Iraqis, it is not that at all." 14. Side view of briefing Crawford, Texas POOL 15. Still photo of Bush 16. White House briefing 17. SOUNDBITE (English) : Scott McClellan, White House spokesman: "The president is very proud of our troops. He knows that our troops are performing well and he knows that our troops will prevail against this violent power play by a relatively small number of extremist elements in Iraq that is led by a radical cleric al-Sadr and the president has great confidence in our troops and he knows that they will defeat these minority extremist elements." 18. Wide shot briefing STORYLINE: United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday that some U.S. troops scheduled to leave Iraq soon might be kept there longer to deal with the current surge in violence. Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld told reporters that the number of people involved in those battles was relatively small. He said Bush is confident US troops will prevail in the "violent power play". 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...
