Rumsfeld warns against ‘appeasement’

SALT LAKE CITY — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday the world faces “a new type of fascism” and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement.

He alluded to critics of the Bush administration’s war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazi Germany in the 1930s, which the Pentagon chief called “a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies.”

Without explicitly citing President Bush’s critics at home or abroad, he said “it is apparent that many have still not learned history’s lessons.”

Aides to Mr. Rumsfeld said later he was not accusing the administration’s critics of trying to appease the terrorists but was cautioning against a repeat of errors made in earlier eras.

Speaking to several thousand veterans at the American Legion’s national convention, Mr. Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failure to confront Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. He quoted Winston Churchill as observing that trying to accommodate Hitler was “a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.”

“I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism,” he said.

“Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” he asked.

“Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world’s troubles?”

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke to the American Legion as part of a coordinated White House strategy, before the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to take the offensive against administration critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq and growing calls to withdraw U.S. troops.

Addressing the same audience later yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration is countering extremism with hope and democracy, and that history will bear out that strategy.

“If we quit before the job is done, the cost of failure will be severe, indeed immeasurable,” Miss Rice said.

“If we abandon the Iraqi people before their government is strong enough to secure the country, we will show reformers across the region that America cannot be trusted to keep its word,” she added.

Mr. Bush was scheduled to speak here later in the week.

Mr. Rumsfeld recalled a string of recent terrorist attacks, from 9/11 to deadly bombings in Bali, Indonesia, London and Madrid, and said it should be obvious to anyone that terrorists must be confronted, not appeased.

“But some seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American press has tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive.

He did acknowledge that the U.S. military has its own “bad actors — the ones who dominate the headlines today — who don’t live up to the standards of the oath and of our country.” But he added that they are a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and lies and distortions being told about our troops and about our country,” he said.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld made similar arguments in separate addresses to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nev.

Mr. Rumsfeld said too many in this country want to “blame America first” and ignore the enemy, as Mr. Cheney linked early withdrawal from Iraq to the possibility of terrorist attacks in the United States.

The remarks have ignited angry rebukes from Democrats.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called the comments “reckless” and said “America is not as safe as it can or should be five years after 9/11.”

“The Bush White House is more interested in lashing out at its political enemies and distracting from its failures than it is in winning the war on terror and in bringing an end to the war in Iraq,” the Nevada Democrat said.

“We have a choice to make today. Do we trust Secretary Rumsfeld to make the right decisions to keep us safe after he has been so consistently wrong since the start of the Iraq war? Or, do we change course in Iraq and put in place new leadership that will put the safety of the American people ahead of partisan games?”

Sen. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat and a former Army officer, said he took particular exception to the implication of the remarks, citing “scores of patriotic Americans of both parties who are highly critical of his handling of the Department of Defense.”

Rep. John P. Murtha, the hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat who voted in favor of the war but recently called for troops to withdraw, said: “It’s interesting to me that they generalize the support for the war. They’re not realistic with the fact that there’s no progress.”

Mr. Rumsfeld defended the war in Iraq, saying that while U.S. military tactics have changed as conditions on the ground have changed, the administration’s war strategy has remained constant: “to empower the Iraqi people to defend, govern and rebuild their own country.”

In arguing against giving up in Iraq, he said people should know from history that wars are never easy.

“You know from experience that in every war — personally — there have been mistakes and setbacks and casualties,” he said. “War is,” as Georges Clemenceau said, “a series of catastrophes that results in victory.”