I got this in my daily DoD update. I am going to post the exact questions, and cut through his four page answers for them get the essential sum of his responses. I am cutting and pasting, and not out of context. If you doubt it, I forward you the entire email happily
I found this fun because rarely have the sum of so many words said so little.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Charlie?
Q Mr. Secretary, you spoke earlier of using scraps of disparate information. Is Saddam cooperating in any way whatsoever? Is he providing any information that's leading you to resistance or perhaps billions of dollars that he stashed away and has used to help pay for the resistance?
SEC. RUMSFELD: In direct answer to your question, I think that characterizing his general relationship with his captors would -- probably the best word would be "resigned," I think, rather than what you used.
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Q Mr. Secretary, is there any evidence that Saddam
Hussein was in any way involved in the current insurgency or attacks against U.S. troops? And if that is the case, would that in any way change his status, prisoner of war status, as far as the United States is concerned? Would the U.S. seek some sort of legal remedy against Saddam Hussein?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
But it's not for me to get into that.
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Q Let me just follow up on that. General Hertling,
with the 1st Armored Division, said that documents captured with Hussein show that he was giving guidance to some of the key figures in the insurgency. Would you agree with that?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
I have not seen the documents.
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Q You haven't been briefed on those particular
documents found with Hussein?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
No.
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Q Mr. Secretary, sir, I have a question for both you
and General Pace. Could you give us a general outline of how the raids since the capture of Saddam Hussein have gone? How successful have those been? Could you give us an update on what has been taking place?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
There was a period of time that Central Command determined that it was best to not do specific types of raids, to give those who were potentially close to Saddam an opportunity to digest the information that was available to them now that he'd been captured and perhaps turn themselves in. And we have been using the information as has been provided to us from the intelligence that's been gathered to assist us in focusing our next operations.
Q And how successful have the raids been? Can you say
who might be in custody at this point as a result of these raids?
GEN. PACE:
I cannot say that.
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Let's go to some other folks.
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Q You say that Saddam Hussein is being accorded, I
believe, the protections of the Geneva Convention as a POW, although --
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Treatment governed as it would be by --
Q Right, although not officially classified as one.
Can you help me understand, then, how you square several issues? Showing his picture to the world. Taking him before other Iraqis. Whether he is compelled to answer questions, or has the right to simply give his name and position. And whether --
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Okay, that's four already. Let me try to work my way through a few of them.
Q -- you plan to provide him with counsel.
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Pardon me? What's this?
Q And whether you plan to provide him with counsel.
SEC. RUMSFELD:
The latter is a matter for lawyers to think about.
With respect to the first part of your question, he has been handled in a professional way and he has not been held up as a public curiosity in any demeaning way, by reasonable definitions of the Geneva Convention. On the other hand, he is an individual who is representative of a regime that has been replaced, and it's terribly important that he be seen by the public for what he is -- a captive, without question. And if lives can be saved by physical proof that that man is off the street, out of commission, never to return, then we opt for saving lives; and in no way can that be considered even up on the edge of the Geneva Convention protections.
//I.E. We will follow the Geneva Accord if is convenient to do so\\
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Q Why don't you designate him a prisoner of war? What
flexibility does it give you?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
And I'm not a lawyer. This is not a legal department, it's a Defense Department.
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Q I have a non-Saddam Hussein question. Both Germany and France today said that they would relieve -- be in favor of relieving some of Iraq's debt. They told this to Secretary Baker. Given that, as a former businessman, might it be prudent now to revisit the Pentagon's decision of December 4th to exclude France, Germany, et cetera, from the list of prime contract candidates for the reconstruction?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
The decision was to preserve for those people who made the Iraqi people's liberation possible the access to prime contracts -- prime, as opposed to subcontracts. And that's an important distinction.
Q But given part of Iraq's future hinges on their debt
being relieved, and these two nations making that kind of gesture, might you think -- would you think it's a decent idea now to revisit --
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Those are all issues for the interagency process and thepresident. Secretary Baker -- former Secretary Baker is doing a good job. I talked to him yesterday. He's out working out an arrangement, we hope, that will relieve the debt burden on the Iraqi people, and that's a good thing.
Q What's your opinion?
Q Mr. Secretary?
Q You have a voice still in this.
SEC. RUMSFELD:
I do, and I give my advice to the president.
Q Well, tell us too!
Q Mr. Secretary?
Q Mr. Secretary?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Yes?
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Q What have you learned about Saddam Hussein's life on the run these past eight months? How long was he in this particular farm house, whether he changed often, whether that theory proved true that he was probably moving around all the time, do you have anything definitive on that?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
Definitive? No.
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Q You were saying that showing the pictures of Saddam
Hussein definitely didn't violate the Geneva Convention. That seems to me to be a real contrast with what happened in Afghanistan, when news photographers were not allowed to shoot photos at all of detainees. Why is that not -- (off mike)?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
We don't have, as a practice, photos now of detainees. What we have here is what I said earlier. You have a very unusual situation.
Q If that's not a violation, can we now photograph detainees when we have the opportunity?
SEC. RUMSFELD:
No. No. I mean, a common detainee, why would one want to do that?
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