By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA<br />American Forces Press Service<br /><br />WASHINGTON, March 14, 2004 -- On the one-year anniversary of the war in Iraq,<br />Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told television viewers today he stands<br />behind the president's decision to go to war, although weapons of mass<br />destruction, one of the justifications for the invasion, have not been found.<br /><br />Rumsfeld, appearing on the CBS program "Face The Nation" with Bob Schieffer,<br />said that he still believes the war with Iraq was "the right thing to do," and<br />that he's glad "it is done."<br /><br />The secretary told Schieffer the U.S.-led coalition helped liberate 25 million<br />Iraqi people from a vicious regime and decades of repression, death squads,<br />mass graves and mass killings.<br /><br />He said Iraq was a country that used chemical weapons on its own people and<br />fired ballistic missiles into several neighboring countries. "It's a good thing<br />they're gone," he said of Saddam Hussein and his regime.<br /><br />Rumsfeld said the United States and United Nations offered Iraqi leader Saddam<br />several opportunities to comply with U.N. resolutions and avoid war, but "he<br />chose war."<br /><br />"There were 17 U.N. resolutions, there was unanimous agreement that he had<br />filed a fraudulent declaration," Rumsfeld said. "The final opportunity was<br />given with the last resolution, and he didn't take it."<br /><br />The secretary said other countries with nuclear weapons knew the right thing to<br />do. "(Saddam) didn't do what Kazakhstan did, he didn't do what South Africa<br />did, and he didn't do what Ukraine did. He didn't say, 'Come in and look, and<br />see what we have.' He was engaged in active deception. We'll ultimately know a<br />great deal about what took place," he said.<br /><br />Later Sunday during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on "CNN Late Edition," the<br />secretary again defended his stance on the war.<br /><br />Although no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found, the secretary<br />noted that Iraq is a country the size of California, and that biological and<br />chemical weapons could have been hidden just about any place.<br /><br /> "You could have hidden enough biological weapons in the hole that we found<br />Saddam Hussein in to kill tens of thousands of people," Rumsfeld said. "So it's<br />not as though we have certainty today." The secretary there is a team of about<br />1,200 people still is in Iraq trying to determine "what really took place."<br /><br />Despite violence including this weekend's deadly attacks in which six U.S.<br />soldiers were killed, U.S. efforts in the Middle East over the past year have<br />been worth the risks, Rumsfeld said. The war, he added, is putting pressure on<br />terrorists in both Afghanistan and Iraq, is an "advance for freedom" and is<br />"clearly making the world a safer place."<br /><br />Rumsfeld offered condolences to the families of those killed by terrorist bombs<br />March 11 in Madrid, Spain, calling the attack that left some 200 dead a "tragic<br />event." The secretary said that although he has no intelligence that would give<br />"clarity" as to who or what organization was responsible for the attack, he did<br />say that there seem to be growing connections among terrorist organizations.<br /><br />Biography:<br />Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld [/bios/rumsfeld_bio.html]