Associated Press
Monday, September 10, 2007

In an interview billed as his first since leaving the Pentagon, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld calls Afghanistan "a big success" but says that U.S. efforts in Iraq are hampered by the failure of Iraq's government to establish a foundation for democracy.

"In Afghanistan, 28 million people are free. They have their own president, they have their own parliament. Improved a lot on the streets," Rumsfeld says in the October issue of GQ magazine.

While "that's been a big success," he said, the Baghdad regime "has not been able to . . . create an environment hospitable to whatever one wants to call their evolving way of life, a democracy or a representative system, or a freer system."

Rumsfeld said the Defense Department and the U.S. military are not responsible for any failures in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

"In a very real sense, the American military cannot lose a battle, they cannot lose a war," he told the magazine. "On the other hand, they can't win the struggle themselves. It requires diplomacy, it requires economic assistance, it requires a range of things that are well beyond the purview of the Department of Defense."

For instance, the refusal of Turkey to allow U.S. troops to cross its border into Iraq at the outset of the war gave would-be insurgents "free play for a good period of time," and, "I mean, there's a dozen things like that," he said.

Rumsfeld resigned as defense secretary in November. He said in the interview that he could not recall the last time he and President Bush spoke.

Asked if he missed Bush: "Um, no," Rumsfeld said.