Secretary Rumsfeld Town Hall Meeting (DOD)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

<snip>
Q Looking out on the future, obviously heavy deployment responsibilities, and don't see much prospect of that really going down. How does that square with overall pressure to downsize the military, at least the active-duty military? Do you see --



SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know of any pressure to downsize the active-duty military.



Q Well, numbers --



SEC. RUMSFELD: The only pressure I see is to increase it.



Q Okay.



SEC. RUMSFELD: I mean, there's no one I know proposing -- in the Department of Defense, anyway -- that -- suggesting that the combined end strength on active duty or in the Guard and Reserve ought to be reduced.



Q So absolute numbers will go up.



SEC. RUMSFELD: I didn't say that. (Light laughter.) You should listen very carefully. (Laughter.) What I said was, I know of no pressure to reduce them. I do know of pressure to increase them. And I don't know of any studies that, at the present time, suggest that it would be a good trade-off, in terms of investments, to increase them.

<snip>

Pretty much SOS.

[teryang]

1. The biggest liar on the planet?

What happened to all that jawboning for tooth to tail? I guess he forgot.