Rumsfiend off his meds

When the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., asked for an estimate on the number of insurgents in Iraq, the secretary said, “I am not going to give you a number for it because it’s not my business to do intelligent work.” (He presumably meant to say “intelligence.”) Ultimately, Rumsfeld admitted he had estimates at his fingertips.

“Could you share those with us?” Skelton inquired.

Not just now, Rumsfeld said. “They’re classified.”
  Dana Milbank (WaPo) article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

When asked about the number of insurgents, Derr Fiend took the opportunity to slam the CIA and the DIA - I guess he'll be a lot happier with the intelligence from his new Pentagon spies.

"My job in the government is not to be the principal intelligence officer and try to rationalise differences between Iraqis, the CIA and the DIA. I see these reports. Frankly, I don't have a lot of confidence in any of them, on that number," Rumsfeld said.

In a Senate testimony later, Rumsfeld also said the Pentagon had no plans for a permanent US troop presence in Iraq, but did not rule out such an arrangement with a future elected government.
  Aljazeera article

I wonder then what he calls the four permanent military bases we've already got there and the ten more we're currently building.

General Robert J. Elder Jr said, ”Today ends more than a decade of military operations in this strategic Middle East nation. The end of (major combat operation in Iraq) and Saddam Hussein’s government means the American military mission here is over.”[14] The Bush administration views Iraq as a key base of operations for its plans to achieve its strategic objectives across the Middle East. With this in mind, the Bush administration sought last year to seek a number of permanent military bases in Iraq. Citing senior US officials, the New York Times revealed on April 20 2003 that the Pentagon was planning to maintain at least four bases in key locations in Iraq indefinitely. These include: the international airport just outside Baghdad; Tallil air field near Nasiriya in the south, an isolated airstrip known as H-1 in the western desert; and the Bashur air base in the northern Kurdish areas. Senior republican Richard Lugar, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee said, “at least we ought to be thinking of a period of five years”, adding “that may understate it.”
  Aljazeerah Info article

Most Americans also don't know there are four permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, with the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root diligently constructing 10 others.
  Seattle Post Intelligencer article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.