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Untitled Document Interview With Donald Rumsfeld (excerpted) CNN Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields December 1, 2001
HUNT: Mr. Secretary, we're running out of time. But let me just ask you -- the country with the greatest number of weapons of mass destruction, of course, is Russia. The Nunn-Lugar program seeks to pay off the Russians to try to dismantle those weapons and some of those rogue scientists -- to pay off those rogue scientists. Why how does the administration cut funding, both in the Defense Department and the Energy Department for Nunn-Lugar programs this year?
RUMSFELD: Goodness, I would have to go check into that; I'm not an expert on the subject. I do know that it's hundreds of millions of dollars that we spend, we have spent. I would presume that the proper response to that question is that after a program's been in place for a period, one does an evaluation of it, and takes a look and says: Is it accomplishing the goals, or isn't it? Are they fulfilling their side of the agreement, or aren't they? And if you are, in fact, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in monies fungible, where is the money that they are not providing going? Is it going for other things that are equally nasty. And I just don't know the answer. And I do know that the United States taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and we still are and they still will in the current budget.
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