DoD News Briefing

NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense

DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Sunday, February 11, 2001
(Interview by Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson on ABC-TV This Week)

Donaldson: Mr. Secretary, you've made the case to our allies why this country should build a missile defense system. Not a full one, but one capable of stopping some threats. But which threats? Who do you have in mind?
Rumsfeld: Well, the purpose of missile defense is to be able to deal with relatively small numbers of ballistic missiles, presumably with weapons of mass destruction as warheads. The system threatens no one, at all. It is a defensive system. And the only people that ought to be concerned about a missile defense system, it seems to me, is anyone who wanted to threaten the United States or threaten our friends and allies.
Donaldson: But you say it's no threat to Russia. In fact, you tried to make the case that Russia could overwhelm this system you have in mind, if it chooses.
Rumsfeld: Well, there's no question. It's designed to deal with relatively small numbers, not hundreds and thousands of weapons.
Donaldson: What about China?
Rumsfeld: China is not a concern. It's not a party to the ABM treaty. It is a country that is increasing its defense budget in double digits, year after year. And it is not - I don't believe that anyone can make a case that missile defense is a particular problem to China.
On the other hand, if some country decided it wanted to be aggressive to its neighbors and acquire additional territory by force, then having a missile defense system is not a bad idea, it seems to me.
Donaldson: So the system would not protect this country against Russia, would not protect this country against China, you seem to be warranting that as part of your argument for the system. Who, then, do you have in mind?
Rumsfeld: Sam, the cold war is over. The idea of mutual assured destruction and massive retaliation was a concept that made sense during the cold war. We do not get up every morning and expect the Soviet Union to come back into life and come racing across the north German plain or to be poised with a ballistic missile attack against the United States. The problem we've got is that the cold war is over and we're seeing the proliferation of these technologies all across the globe.