>> host: in government? >> guest: and jarman, yes. >> host: here is chicago on the independent line. >> caller: nds -- >> host: door on the air. >> caller: i want to say i support what president obama has been doing. he had ice-cream saturday and went golfing on sunday and i enjoy those activities myself. thank you. >> host: things for that call. .. ?

now they have ridden off into the sunset with big money in their bank accounts. i like to know when they're going to give some of the money back to the american people because now we are suffering? guest: concerning weapons of mass destruction, clearly that is misjudgment. clearly, that is misjudgment that rumsfeld and all of the other top officials in the bush administration are going to have to continue to address. , rumsfeld was coming did believe the intelligence report that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. but, i think, of all this in your administration officials, as i write in the book, rumsfeld should have known better, or at least should have questioned that intelligence more aggressively than he did, because he made a point always and head for years of trying to

warn against believing too much in the conventional wisdom, not challenging enough assumptions and intelligence reports. he was very fond of distributing to people the preface of a book on pearl harbor, which warns against falling into this kind of conventional thinking, and not challenging the conventional wisdom sufficiently, and yet here was the case for rumsfeld himself didn't seem to question enough. >> host: moments ago we showed our viewers a picture that is not in your book of donald rumsfeld meeting with saddam hussein. how did this, first of all, come about? when was this and secondly why did this come back to haunt him a little bit? >> guest: the meeting occurred in september-- december 1983 when rumsfeld was serving as a presidential envoy for president

reagan. and envoy to the middle east. he, at that point, was instructed by the reagan administration to try to facilitate the resumption of ties with iraq that had been ruptured during the iraq-iran war. both the reagan administration and saddam hussein at that point were interested in resuming those ties and the u.s. thought it would be important as a way of offsetting iran's influence in the region. it seemed to be a good idea at the time. of course, 20 years later it was an embarrassment for rumsfeld to have those pictures circulating of him shaking hands with saddam hussein. >> host: you have tottoson your book in the oval office, the picture here of secretary of state colin powell and national security speiser condoleezza rice.

what was secretary rumsfeld relationship with those two? >> guest: his relations were strained with both. particularly, on policy questions. and personal terms, he could be very engaging, courteous and so on. he would-- but there were tremendous attend-- tensions between rumsfeld's pentagon and pol pot state department on a broad range of foreign-policy and national-security issues, and there was a lot of sort of gamesmanship, a lot of needling. rumsfeld beaston needle powell at national security council meetings. rumsfeld would pick on powell's pronunciation of the capital of afghanistan, telling him he was putting the accent on the wrong syllable. powell, no slouch himself to try to get back rumsfeld, a needling his well-worn suits and so on. as for rice, rumsfeld felt, he

was very critically initially of from management of the security council. i talked to one of them. >> host: atwater, maryland, this is mason independent line. >> caller: good morning gentleman. i would like to ask the author, part of a problem was rumsfeld reputation comes from the fact that no matter how good of the secretary of defense to become, if you are a secretary who wants to be true agent of change as rumsfeld was, to go in with forces, change the mentality of the military, you sometimes just takes so many pins and bricks that in the end, your reputation is not what it would have been if you would have just kind of gone with the flow. >> guest: i do think there's something to that point. maybe he was found not to be the most popular person just by coming in and trying to change a

very hidebound institution and one of the most hidebound bureaucracies and washington, but there are also ways that are more effective to try to bring about change than others and rumsfeld is often criticized for it, and partly what got him into trouble was his style. it could be needlessly offensive, abusive, abrasive. that is how many could dealt with him felt. >> host: hyattsville maryland next up under democrats line. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i have always been troubled by the remark that he made a young soldier stand up, telling him, asking him also i believe about the equipment and not being supplied with the equipment that should have been on the field. rumsfeld said to him, after

hesitating, you go to war with what you have got. to me, that was insensitive and could he have not-- i hope you address that somewhere in your book, if not now. >> guest: i do. i talk about that at length and i talked about it earlier in a program this morning. he has never really regretted the statement. he feels it was taken out of context, that if you read his full statement, he does show some more empathy for the situation and he did, when he returned to washington, send off a number of memos to senior officials, as a report in the book, to try to do better on this issue. >> host: you are right that brent scowcroft that worked with rumsfeld three nixon and ford years continues to have contact over several decades. donald rumsfeld remained perplexed and to this day said mr. scowcroft i don't know what rumsfeld really things.

he said i had a chance to watch his mind operate. for anybody else with whom i have had that kind of contact, i have got the picture who they are, what makes them work and so on. i have no idea what makes them work, what makes him the way he is. at want to ask you, after doing this book on donald rumsfeld, to have an idea of what makes him tick? >> guest: i have somewhat of a better idea but i can't say i thoroughly understand him. he is very complicated and that is what has continued to fascinate me about him. he is like a jekyll and hyde kind of character. he has got this very rough, tough hard-charging side to him that got him into trouble as defense secretary, also had made him effective years earlier in business and government. on the other hand he can be a very affable, genial, and old

world courtesy about him. you never quite knew which rumsfeld would show up sometimes. at least i never did in my dealings with him. there were times when he seemed genuine, seemed forthcoming. other times he could be very icy, colgan shutdown. line of questioning of that was going some place we did not want to go. he seems very self aware. there were examples, and i mention this in the book, when he would dress down some senior officer in front of a group of others, and be very harsh and afterwards, you know, another senior official might take rumsfeld aside and say, no, sir, you were maybe a little too tough on this person. rumsfeld luttig knowledge that and maybe give the person a phonecall and not quite apologize but it least try to soften a little bit. so, he is self aware, but why he

did dense rain himself and more remains somewhat of a mystery. >> host: this is spencerville indiana, ruth on a republican line. good morning. >> caller: it morning. i wanted to touch a little bit more on this idea that the new conservatives influence and their object was talking about democracy, and making democracy around the world. wifi net to be an absolute fallacy because that nut was not what they want it. that was simply for public consumption here in this country. it sounds good because we have a so-called democracy. we think that would be wonderful for everyone, but if you read their history and to their mentors really work, it has nothing to do with democracy. it has to do with power and empire around the world, and to say that was where they disagreed with rumsfeld, i find

that to be absolutely untrue. >> well, there's no question there was a line of argument within the administration about trying to use that promotion of democracy notion as a justification for the invasion of iraq and there was a strong push in that direction. rumsfeld did resist it, and then he had long discussions with doug fyfe, his policy cheat on this about exactly the wording and statements to try to, not make that one of the rationales. >> host: here is weatherford texas, richard on our independents line. no, to a ardmore oklahoma. good morning. oklahoma, make sure you turn down your television or radio before you ask a question and

then go ahead. >> caller: hi, yes, it seems to me like this fellow should be writing a book about adolf hitler if he wants to white something over. this rumsfeld was the biggest crack that was ever in government, especially with his old bush bed buddies the ball. this is shame that someone can't write something about someone could up in congress. thank you. >> host: you write that he was the most influential secretary of defense sends robert mcnamara. how did it to compare? >> guest: i talk a little bit about the comparison between the two. there are a lot of similarities. they both came into the job, the top pentagon job from business, eager to try to make change at the pentagon. they both quickly made a lot of

waves, made a number of enemies. they were seen as overbearing, surrounded by a number of aides who were of similar mind and manner. and they both of course ended up leading the united states into a very unpopular wars. there is a significant difference though between mcnamara and rumsfeld inner mindset when they left office. already by the time mcnamara left he was beginning to have doubts and beginning to express regrets about the handling of the vietnam war. not so with rumsfeld for may at times have come to express some regret. he didn't with me, and i pressed him on it, particularly in our last interview, last fall. of course, he has left office younger then-- i am sorry, he has left office older than

mcnamara was when he left office, and mcnamara has had more time to reflect. so, we will see where rumsfeld finally comes out. >> host: former secretary rumsfeld is working on his own autobiography? >> guest: he is. it is a little surprising that he is because for many years, he used to, showed little interest in that kind of a book. in fact, he often denigrated other memoirs, particularly those that dealt with events that he was a vulnerable because he would feel that authors didn't quite capture the events as he remembered. he was always worried-- n.t. is still concerned about writing a book that others are critical of, because they think it is inaccurate or self-serving and will therefore think less of him. but, he told me one point that he had read katharine graham's

autobiography, and was actually quite scared by it. it was a very frank book and won a pulitzer prize. , its franken's scared rumsfeld, and so whether he can bring himself to be as honest as i think still is a very open question. >> host: did you get a chance to interview former vice president cheney? >> guest: i talked to and toys about rumsfeld. in not surprisingly, cheney still defends the line he used about rumsfeld at the farewell ceremony in december 2006 were cheney told rumsfeld the best secretary of defense ever. he thinks rumsfeld is hard charging style at the pentagon was just what was needed to bring about change. >> host: here are a couple of more calls. murphysboro tennessee, michael on the republican line. >> caller: i was just going to ask your guest if he had never

heard-- i'm going to back to march of 2003 when the war began where cantor you had inspectors on the ground like we dad-- did they ever start a war like this? i remember well for one, where they shot the austrian guy and the austrians demanded to go to serbia to look for the killers are the conspirators and that was the reason austria started the war because serbia would not let them go in to look for the assassin of the student. >> host: michael, we'll get a response. >> guest: well, they generally believed there were going to be weapons of mass destruction. i don't think there were inventing that rationale. and come on one of rumsfeld passmore embarrassing moments was even a couple of months into the war, where he was insisting that they knew where the weapons of mass destruction wear and it

was just a matter of time before they would be found. he genuinely believe that. >> host: vero beach florida, good morning to ray on our independents line. >> caller: thank you. i have a couple of points i want to discuss with bradley. first,. [inaudible] inner was the entire staff of the 2,000 regime. to say that will full lives, pearl, ginnie and rumsfeld were not part of the neocon, beginning era is ridiculous. the second point, in terms of, in terms of the directive that he was trying to enforce or accomplish from george w. bush in terms of the military. the only thing i heard about it

was he was trying to and so privatization which he'd succeeded tremendously into the pentagon's operations. >> host: okay, we will hear from mr. graham. >> guest: i was not saying that wolfowitz, pro-and pfeiffer not neocons. they were. rumsfeld was never really had a card-carrying neoconservative. he was at times a fellow traveler and the found it worth, useful to be associated with them to sign their letters and before becoming defense secretary of serious issues, and to have them in his upper ranks of the pentagon, but he himself was not a card-carrying neoconservative. and, as for the transformation, and there is a lot that could be

included under what rumsfeld intended with transformation and part of the problem i think was that, i think by the time he left, it was the buzzword, whose meaning seem to encompass almost anything anybody wanted it to who was trying to effect change of the pentagon. >> host: donald rumsfeld doesn't eagles you wrote that he almost quit. what maid internet around? >> guest: he did almost quit. he was very involved in scouting for of his high-school career and now is very proud of the fact that he stayed at it. and, was not going to be a quitter and was determined to see it through. and, one of the things that kept him in scouting, he had a very

tight knit scouting group there in the chicago area, where he grew up in there was a very dynamic scout leader who stayed with the boys, all the way through their scouting years. >> host: a couple of more calls for bradley graham. this is in fernandino, good morning to stephanie on our democrat line. >> caller: good morning c-span. i have basically a statement and then a comment. pfeiffer statement is that there you go again writing history and trying to make-- [inaudible] the bush administration and with that i have a question. if he did, rumsfeld, is he one of the people and you touched on it earlier, the reason why he knew that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction is

because he helped either sell or give it to them, give it to saddam against iran, and is any portion of this book going towards charities to help the families? thank you. >> guest: i am not aware of rumsfeld ever profiting from any sales of weapons of mass destruction or elements for weapons of mass destruction to iraq or anybody else. so far, there are no proceeds of this book to give to anybody. i do want to say though that, i mean the number of the callers understandably sound very critical of rumsfeld and i understand that. i think my book overall is quite critical, quite tough on rumsfeld but it does attempt to provide a kind of new ones to be with him, because he is a

complicated character, and i think it is important to understand where he was responsible for things alone, where there is responsibility to be blamed-- blaine to be shared and were in some cases maybe he really wasn't the key person responsible. >> host: bradley graham's new book, "by his own rules" goes on sale today. thanks for joining us this morning. >> guest: thanks for having me. >> tomorrow we will discuss the economy and the federal reserve with former treasury undersecretary john taylor. arizona senator john mccain takes your calls at 88 am eastern and linda douglas, communications director for the white house office of health reform talks about the administrations plans for healthcare and we will look at the day's news with bob schieffer, chief washington correspondent for cbs news. washington journal live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m.

eastern. also on washington journal this week tom ridge, former secretary of homeland security will take your questions on thursday at 9:00 a.m. eastern.

>> the health committee begin insinuative marking of the healthcare bill. senator chris dodd sitting in for senator ted kennedy. this is two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everyone. i think with that the requisite number of members here to begin to proceed. let me thank all of the common you for being here and we will continue with the markup of the affordable health choice zizek. let me thank everyone.

last week i felt it was productive. we had a long productive day. was here for seven hours of opening statements in made progress on the quality missions of the bill, title ii of the bill. i wanted thank the staff. they worked all weekend. mike enzi's staff and senator kennedy's staff and others on primarily i think on the prevention section. they reduced it down to i think seven teams are so as they were explaining it to me so i am very grateful to the staff and others to spend a good part of all of the weekend trying to win the down and resolve and reach agreement on as many proposals as they could. senator mikulski will be here and a couple of minutes. what i thought i would do at the outset briefly before turning to senator inslee, mike enzi, is try to give you at least a layout of the plan for this week if we could come starting late today. i would like to be able to complete-- we have about five,

six, seven amendments to complete as i am told. senator mikulski, how are you? i hope would be this afternoon that we could try to complete whatever-- where you want to sit. to try to complete the quality piece of the could this afternoon. we have it voted 5:30 annika could spend the next couple of hours and get through title to it would be great and start title iii tomorrow which is the prevention section and to work on that through tomorrow, and with the remaining sections dealing with the workforce, fraud and abuse of long-term care. every piece we are working on there are scored numbers for. we thought we would have cbo numbers back today. we don't yet have them john. i know you were interested in the subject matter but we hope to get them by early tomorrow. i am not going to go near the sections that we don't have scored but they will stick with the sections that we do have scored numbers, to allow us to complete those sections and to

move forward. at wanted to say to all members my intention would be this week to work in the evenings, and hopefully we complete sections during the day that we will try to leave early. it is not my intention to make this hard. we will try to get rid of the can, at least a good part. guidone escort numbers, and i have told my can see this, i'm not going to jam situations where we only have a short amount of time to react. it is the most difficult bill any of us will ever work on and it is complicated in getting it right but i have considered it successful if we can move on the quality prevention. reach agreements or we can have those votes to move on. that is my intent anyway this week. >> could i ask a question? >> certainly. >> what are we going to have the incomplete portions of the bill? i would remind the chairman that the bill was introduced on june 9th, with those three pieces missing. then we were told they would be

available june 12. then we are told we would see them on june 18th. then the cbo estimate came out and then we were told we would see them on friday, june 19. now we are going to see on june 26. mr. chairman these are vital aspects of the bill. you are addressing all of these other provisions on prevention, the wellness and all of these things but the cost of the bill and the provisions as far as the government and look the employers are going to be required to do are the essential elements this legislation. we are not addressing them. how in the world-- the complete work on a bill that you don't even-- the costs are vital but even more important in some ways is to know what the bill is. >> let me answer the question. the question is, obviously the numbers last week or high. we can draft a bill if we are not going to be able to reach members to bring down those costs of those back-and-forth. ms. li we are try to come up with language and so forth that

works, that is real, that makes this a manageable number. throwing out language without having the cbo, as i said is the chicken and egg as we move forward. language works and brings down the numbers. the numbers last week obviously were high. there were sticker shock on people's thoughts of going back to the drawing board on those areas. there's no point in prenups something until we have an agreement. >> there's no point in bringing something unless you address the essential elements of what you are trying to achieve. so far, there is no cost savings in anything that we have been addressing. and we have not addressed not only the cbo report of one point-- $1 trillion that only, the only insures one-third of the uninsured. what do we do about the other two-thirds? most support mike, what is the role of government? what is the obligations the employer has? that is what the controversy about this bill is about and we