Boehner: ‘Rumsfeld Is The Best Thing That’s Happened To The Pentagon In 25 Years’

Think Progress
Oct. 29, 2006

This morning on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) whether he agreed with the growing number of prominent conservatives who think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign.

Boehner said that “Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.” He told Stephanopoulos the buck should stop nowhere. “Let’s not take the problems in Iraq, the tough fight that we’re in there and blame it on anyone.” Watch it

Transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me just ask one more question on this. Your own senators, I said Mike DeWine, thinks Rumsfeld has to go. Do you agree?

BOEHNER: I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years. This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. Let’s not take the problems in Iraq, the tough fight that we’re in there and blame it on anyone. We’re in a tough fight. Al Qaeda is doing everything they can to disrupt our efforts in Iraq, to disrupt the new government, creating more violence than anyone can imagine and defeating al Qaeda there is important, because if we were to pull out before we win, we will embolden every terrorist in every corner of the world and then instead of fighting them in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.