Rumsfeld Responds to Questions on WMDs

The following quotes are from a Washington Post story:

"I have so many things to do at the Department of Defense..."

Regarding a 30-minute meeting with David Kay, the CIA representative who is coordinating the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq:

"I made a conscious decision that I didn't need to stay current every 15 minutes on the issue. I literally did not ask. . . . I'm assuming he'll tell me if he'd gotten something we should know..."

"I . . . have to compartment things, and that is, in my view, something the intelligence community is working on, and working on effectively..."

"I have a feeling they will, in fact, continue to work the problem..."

"There were several hundreds of suspected WMD sites..."

"Nothing actionable in the way of intelligence, but suspected..."

At Rumsfeld's final news conference in Baghdad, exasperated reporters asked Rumsfeld twice about the weapons search. "Can you please give us at least one example of what is the result today?"

"I'm inclined not to," the secretary replied. "I'll tell you what the situation is: The situation is that it's an important question."

He said Kay's teams "are visiting various sites periodically..."

"And rather than dribbling out pieces of information in a way that, oh, causes confusion, debate or discussion, it strikes me that it's useful to let the leadership of that team . . . proceed in an orderly way and at the right moment bring forward the information they have to the people of the world. And they will do so."