Rumsfeld Attacks Murtha: Says He Is Undermining Troops, Comforting Enemy

Think Progress
Nov. 20, 2005

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld was asked about Rep. Jack Murtha on Fox News Sunday:

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, here’s a decorated Vietnam veteran, generally speaking a hawk on military matters. What message does it send to you as the Secretary of Defense when you’ve lost Jack Murtha on Iraq?

DONALD RUMSFELD…[W]e also have to understand that our words have effects, and put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we’re going to pull out precipitously or immediately as some people have proposed. Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they’re doing makes sense if that’s the idea, if that’s the debate…Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder, maybe all we have to do is wait, and we’ll win. We can’t win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States.

The key to defeating the enemy, it seems, is to just accept Rumsfeld’s policy with no debate at all.