Washington, Oct 22: Defense Secretary Donald H
Rumsfeld questioned whether the United States was doing
enough to win the war on terrorism, citing “mixed results''
in the fight against Al-Qaida in a pointed memo to top
Defense Department officials last week.
Rumsfeld said the us-led coalitions would win in
Afghanistan and Iraq, but not without “a long, hard slog.''
He wrote that the United States “has made reasonable
progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis'' but has
made “somewhat slower progress'' tracking down top Taliban
leaders who sheltered Al-Qaida In Afghanistan.
The memo, dated October 16 and first reported by USA
oday today, offered a much more stark assessment of
the global war on terrorism than contained in Rumsfeld's
public statements.
“It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in
Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a
long, hard slog,'' he wrote.
White House Press Secretary Scott Mcclellan,
traveling with president George W Bush in Australia,
declined to comment on the memo.
Bush, however, talked about the war on terrorism with
reporters aboard air force one en route to Canberra, where he
planned to discuss this with Prime Minister John Howard.
“I've always felt that there's a tendency of people
to kind of seek a comfort zone and hope that the war on
terror is over,'' Bush said. “And I view it as a
responsibility of the United States to remind people of our
mutual obligations to deal with the terrorists.''
Bureau Report
