Former secretary of defense daonald rumsfeld is next on booktv. [music playing] what sandy didnt say is i have lived one third of the history of our country. Which tells you what a Young Country it is. Or what on old man i am. I am so pleased to be here. And sandy, thank you for the moderately good introduction. George, and gavin, and all of the member of the president s council thank you for supporting this important institution. I am a supporter myself so i thank you. I have been travelling around talking about the book. And i am told you are ready to ask questions and i will answer the ones i know answers to and i will respond to the others. But before i do, just a few words about the book. I spent four years writing this book. It started because my mother was with a School Teacher and i would ask her what a word was and she would say look it up. And write them down and read them and remind yourself what they mean. And i started writing down thoughts or things i thought were important. I did that as a young man, a boy scout, a navy pilot, in congress, and after resigning from congress in 1969 i served in the office of Economic Opportunity and it was my First Executive job and i made notes about that. When president ford came in he called me back to chair of transition. And then i served as his whitehouse chief of staff. I mentioned one of these rules. And he said what is that . He had been a legislative. Never served an executive position. And i told him i keep those rules and i dont know what i said to him, maybe Something Like the staff shouldnt say the whitehouse is calling. Buildings cant call. And so he said well let me see this and i had it typed up and i showed it to him and i said you should circulate that to the senior staff in the whitehouse. New york times wrote about it and people have been reading it now for a quarter of a time. I thought it would be interesting to people about meetings and i have a chapter on wrestling because i wrestled for ten years. That is where you learn the relationship between effort and results. It is important. The other thing you learn is putting yourself in the others person shoes and that is useful in negotiations. Then i spent time in businesses and learned rules like as higher as and bs higher cs. It is true. I proceeded to make other chapters and towards the end as i was finishing the book i thought about the fact that American Business doesnt defend the capitalist system well. I saw the occupy everything movement and listened to the National Campaign and i heard people talking about government growing jobs. It reminded me of one of my rules that washington, d. C. Is 60square miles surrounded by reality. [ applause ] the chapter on capitalism i wrote because i was worried people in business first of all few people in government have been in business. It is easy for an academic to go into the business or a lawyer to go into government and come out. It is hard for a business person. If they are a Small Business person it is their business and they have to be there. In a larger corporation they are knocked off the ladder and it is hard to reenter. So as a result, and i will admit it, confession is good for the soul my wife tells me, if you are looking at government from business you understand it one dimensional. You have no idea what government delay does to business or what uncertainty does for business. You dont feel the impact of the regulations. I send my taxes in and add a letter to whom it may concern, here are my taxes. I want you to know i dont have the slightest idea if they are correct. I went to college. My wife did. And she will not read them. I pay money to an accountant and he does them for me. I hope they are right. Can you imagine the country with a lousy tax system like that . How many people understand taxes . Lets see . I dont know see many hands going up. But i wrote the chapter because i was in business and i know a business man has shareholders, customers, and they have employees. And they are across the spectrum in political views and ideas and parties. And therefore Business People are very reluctant to challenge and criticize the government. They dont want to divide their stockholders or employees. And they worry about the irs. Well if you dont understand your taxes you ought to worry. I worry. I mean i know i dont know. They also if you are in the pharmaceutical business you have the food and Drug Administration and they all have these alphabet organizations and to the extent someone criticizes the government they will be turned on. And in my view, that is why the current irs think is so critical because americans dont want to feel like their government could be turned on them in a way that target people. If you target one, you can target another. And i think that is why that is so central. Now, what i would like to do is have sandy or somebody where are these people. Do you have microphones . I think you do. I would be happy to respond to questions and answer some. I will do my best. And what you need to do is raise your hand and sandy will bring a mic. I always hate the first question. And then it pops up like a jack in the box. Scares me to death. Boy, those lights are bright. Make it a good one or i will embarrass you if you dont. Here is what we will do, mr. Secretary. Someone has to turn his mike on. You had the floor before, sandy. Who has the first question . Okay. Anthony. Is your microphone on . I have two quick questions. I am 81 in july. I dont need multipart questions. It is 10 15 in washington where i flew in from. Single question. But feel free to go ahead. Okay. First question is no, you only get one. Turn off his mic. Will you write a book for republicans and say that wasnt tax without doing a tax decrease . Thou will not raise expenses without some sort of cut in the middle . I mean i remember when i watched your interview on the letterman show you suggested there was a time in which the debt reached like a 100 billion and the world went crazy. I was there. It was the presidency of johnson. It was the First Federal budget in our history that hit 100 billion dollars. And everyone just gasped at the thought. But now it doesnt seem like now we have a trillion dollar deficit. It doesnt look like the republicans are helping any. So will you write a book for them . I think the republicans there are people across the spectrum in both parties. But i was speaking about my other book, known and unknown at fort levinworth, the army base not the prison. It is a big school there. And someone asked me what is the biggest problem that i worry about when i go to bed at night. American weakness was the answer and why do i say that . I think the signal being sent out from this county is we are modeling American Economy on europe and that is a failed model. It doesnt work. There is no way you can have the deficits we have had and have the debt we are accruing without sending out the signal this county isnt going to be what it was like in the past. People take that message and see it. And then you turn around. When i went to washington, esionhour was president. We were spending 10 on gross defense and today less than 4 . The signal that knows out to the world is we have cut 193 billion from the Defense Budget and about to cut half a trillion and that is close to 950 billion out of tenyear budget. That sends the signal that the United States isnt going to be in themr. Secretary, first i wa to thank you for your service, and second i want to ask you, it has been ten plus years since the iraq war and i would like to know what you think happened and what will happen to the poplar slogan that bush lied and people died. The intelligence was fashioned by the United StatesIntelligence Community and it was studied by Collin Powell who made the presentation to the country from the united nations. It was supported by the congress including Hilary Clinton, john kerry, and rockefeller. It had been the policy of the United States for a decade that there should be regime changed and that was signed by president clinton president of the United States at the time. The idea that has become a theme against president bush it seems to me is a. Unfortunate. And a narrative has been made in the media which isnt the case. In iraq, what is going to happen . I dont know. We know that saddam hassan is bad. He used chemical weapons on his own people his neighbors. We know he killed hundreds of thousands of people. The mass graves in that country were heartbreaking to see. We know the country has ethnic issues still. They have elected a prime minister, president and a par parliment. It is a tough part of the world . You bet. Is it going to be an easy road . No way. It is going to be tough. But we had slaves in the 1800s and killed 600,000 americans in a bloody war. Women didnt vote until the 1900s. It is bumpy road for almost every country. How it comes out, i dont know. I know they have a chance and i have a lot of respect for the young men and women who have severed over there on behalf of our country. [ applause ] hi, mr. Secretary, thanks for coming all the way to the wild, wild west to see us all. We appreciate it. You said you have seen about 1 3rd of his countrys history i have lived it. That is right. I have not seen it all. The question is can we turn it around . Because right now you keep seeing one thing after another after another coming out of this government and you think that is going to do. That is going to turn the American Public around and they will start paying attention. What can we do to turn it around . [ applause ] i think the first thing we have to do is recognize that the idea that anyone one citizen cant do much isnt true. Our whole system is rooted in the reality that for it to work, each of us has to participate in helping to guide and direct the course of the country. Some people say well maybe i will not vote or there is so many in the neighborhood who vote the other way why bother. It doesnt make a difference if you write a letter to the editor. You have mayor and state official here. If people are picking on them unfairly it doesnt matter if i stand up. Well it does matter. Each individual can do a lot. Every time things get bad in this country, and there are plenty of times it has been worse than today, the American People change their priorities. Is it possible there is a Tipping Point where you get shoved too far one way . I suppose there is. Have we reached it . I doubt it. I have confidence in the American People. Think of all of the people who rushed into the World Trade Center in new york or the pent gone and pulled people out who were dying . The American People have a lot of fiber. I mean this countrys streets were not paved with gold. And all of the people that came from other countries that build it into what it is. I have a website, rumsfeld. Com and i put a speech on their that was given to my senior class in 1954. If you have young people who are wondering about the world. Read that speech by adly stevens. He was governor of my home state and a democrat. He was a cerebral type. One of his slogans was egg heads of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but our yokes. But this speech in 1954 was brilliant. If you think about the people that do stand up and support people and understand how precious what we have you know, i have a couple titanium hips and shoal shoulders. I had a therapist coming out and after a couple days i said i can do this on my own. And then he said do you mind if i Say Something personal and i said go ahead. And he said i came from nigeria and this county is so special. I dont think those of you who were born here appreciate it. If you went to any embassy all across the globe at 1012 a. M. You would see people sleeping on the lawn trying to be first in line to get a card to come to the United States. It is that important. And we have to pause and think how lucky we are. And how special this country is. And given that i guess my answer to that question is and i tried to write this in the last chapter of my book it is i think, not a good period for our country right now. But i think there will be a good period ahead. And we have been through tough times before. And i personally have a lot of confidence. I came from the midwest and we are optimistic people. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, mr. Secretary. I am a current u. S. State Department Employee and i want your opinions on the benghazi situation. If you are going to put people in danger you ought to provide security for them. [ applause ] and then if for some reason you cannot, you take them out. The brits were there and pulled people out because they didnt have the right protection and they saw the threat risk. There were al qaeda targets that were armed. And they pulled out their people. And our people were not. They requested additional security and didnt receive the Security Assistance they requested. Second, the Bush Administration had to deal with september 11th. And in my view they put in place a set of structures that have helped to protect the American People for the 12 years since then and done a good job. What we didnt do a great job in was competing in the space against radical islam. And the administration not only has, this administration will not compete there but they pretend it doesnt exist. They talk about fort hood being workplace violence. And that is not true. It is people who are radical and determined to oppose the concept of a nation state and impose their views on the world. It is people think when you say it is as a war on terror that it is a war that will be won with bullets. Well this is more like the cold war. It will take decades. We dont today we are not competing in the space as we did against communism and that is because people dont want to be seen against a religion. But the American People are tolerant of all religions. Yet there is a reluctareluctanc name the enemy and you cannot win that way. [ applause ] on my website, i had a meeting with a combat commanders in 2003 and i got back to my office and i was concerned. I wrote a memo on october 13th or 16th of 2003. And i said we dont have metrics to know if we are winning or loosing the war on terror. We dont know the number of people being trained or recruited and funded from people all across that part of the world. We dont know the amount of money that is being raised and contributed to train terrorist and teach people how to strap on suicide vest and kill people. The purpose of terror, i think lindon said, isnt it kill people, it is to terrorize them and alter their behavior. You cannot defend against terror because a terrorist can attack any time, any place using any technique and you cannot protect all of the places day and night. So the only thing to do is go after them, put pressure on them and make everything they do more difficult. Harder to raise money, harder talk on the phone, harder to move between countries, and above all harder for them to recruit and fund the training of additional terrorist. It isnt that complicated. It is hard. It will take decades because it is strong stream of radicalism. But it is doable. Just like dealing with the co u communism threat was by competing with their ideas. So i will take the next question. I am looking for one i dont have to answer. This is probably more the man said i stand by what i meant to say. I dont see a thing around here with the lights. Who has the mic . Someone yell at me. 12 oclock. You must have been in the navy or the air force. Not really. I wanted to know what you thought of the democratic president who has been compared to two major republican president s. One as lincoln and the other you will have to speak up say it again. I dont understand the words. I wanted to ask you about a democratic president who has been compared to two major republican president. One entering as lincolns su successor i cannot follow. I am saying what do you think of a democratic president who has been compared to two major republican president s . First when he entered he was compared to lincoln. Now he compares to to nixonian politician. I think i get it. What do i think . I didnt vote for him. [ applause ] mr. Secretary, what we will do next is we are Live Streaming this program globally tonight via utube and we have taken questions the last view days and we will put them up and i am read it to you. The question is what lessons or practices can politicians and government leaders learn from the private sector . This is from brian wilson in toledo. First thing that flashed into my mind was what ms. Thatcher once said and that was the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money. [ applause ] the big difference between government and business is that in business you are using your money. In government you are using other peoples money and there is a big difference between how people handle their money and other peoples money. It is just true. It is true anywhere you look. We all behave a little differently if it is other peoples money than our own. In the pentagon it broke my heart to turn my head and seeing expensive wood paneling going up in a hall. We would not do that if we were a corporation. The advantage of a corporation or company or business is they can go broke and that is a good thing. Walk down know retail street and go back a year from now and about 10 will remain. Dead leaves die. But in government they go on and on. And trying to find some technique you can use to get people in government to manage money like they mind manage their own instead of how they manage other peoples money is a difficult thing. The only way you can do it is for people to be vigilant, for people to understand that the federal government ought to be the very last resort. You start with individuals. And if individuals need help you look at charitable and nonprofit organizations. And then lo