White House distances itself from Rumsfeld remarks on Muslims

The White House on Thursday distanced itself from remarks about Muslims made by former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in internal memos during his tenure. Portions of the memos published in the Washington Post Thursday showed the controversial secretary had commented that Muslims shied "from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world." "Too often Muslims are against physical labour, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed," he wrote, according to the newspaper. "An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism." The statements are "not all in line with the president's views," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. "We are aware that we have a lot of work to do in order to win hearts and minds across the Arab world and the Muslim world. And I can understand why they would be offended by those comments," she said. The newspaper report also outlined Rumsfeld's views on securing support for the war in Iraq by strengthening the American public's sense of being threatened and drawing parallels between Iraq and Iran. Rumsfeld resigned as defence minister after US President George W Bush's Republican Party lost congressional elections last year, largely on growing dissatisfaction with the handling of the war in Iraq.