You also not only have classifications -- top secret, secret, confidential, official use only, and the like -- you also have compartments. You can have something that is -- people -- a lot of people cleared for top secret, but it's in a compartment and they're not cleared for that compartment.

And that is also something -- it can be taken out of a compartment, if for some reason it's OK. But even people cleared for top secret are not allowed into all the compartments because that's based on a need to know.

VAN SUSTEREN: Democrats, Republicans both are very disturbed about this on Capitol Hill. Senator Feinstein is a Democrat, is an example, Senator McCain another example. There's a controversy, though, as to how this should be investigated, who should investigate it. The attorney general's appointed two U.S. attorneys, one from Maryland who was appointed by President Bush, and one from D.C. appointed by President Obama.

Some -- some senators, including Senator McCain, want a special prosecutor. What do you think is the better way forward on this?

RUMSFELD: Oh, I'm not in a position to second guess it. I think the principle that ought to be applied is this. Regardless of whether they're people appointed by Attorney General Holder that work for him, political appointees, which both of those people would be, or a special prosecutor, I think the test is not that.

The test is, Are the people appointed the kinds of people that reasonable members of the House and Senate are going to nod and say they'll do a fair job? They're not going to trim. They have reputations and -- I worry about a lot of special prosecutors.

You know, they get unlimited budgets. They can go on forever. They don't report to anybody. And in our system, I think being able to hold someone accountable other than a special prosecutor is not a bad idea.

But if that's the case, if it's not a special prosecutor, it seems to me it has to be somebody that the Republicans and the Democrats in the House and Senate who are concerned about this, and with good reason, ought to be able to nod and say, Fair enough, those people will do a decent job.

VAN SUSTEREN: Jumping ahead -- I mean, you know, this may be a criminal action by leaking it, may not. I mean, there's a lot to be learned and discovered about this. But what should happen to someone who does leak like this? I mean, someone -- what should we do with someone like this?

RUMSFELD: They can be prosecuted criminally for breaching security classifications.

VAN SUSTEREN: If it's not against the law. I mean, suppose that, you know, for whatever reason, that, you know, this is one of those areas where -- gray areas where there isn't a law that might cover it precisely, so it's not a violation of law. What should happen?

RUMSFELD: You're the lawyer, Greta!

(LAUGHTER)

VAN SUSTEREN: No, but it may not be a legal issue. You know, it may -- you know, it may ultimately not be a legal issue.

RUMSFELD: I mean, we've sent people to jail for -- for violating security and for compromising classified information.

VAN SUSTEREN: It could be unclassified. You know...

RUMSFELD: The things that we're talking about by way of the leaks are -- I have to believe were not unclassified. They were classified.

VAN SUSTEREN: I would find it hard to believe, too, but you know -- and that's why I hope -- you know, we'll find out more with the investigation.

Now let me turn to Pakistan. We are now paying $100 million a month extra for the last seven months because the Pakistanis have closed the route going to Pakistan for our supplies and -- as -- because of -- because of -- the United States will not apologize for the soldiers who were killed in that strike last November.

What are your thoughts about this?

RUMSFELD: My thoughts are that Pakistan is a complicated relationship. It's an enormously important country to us. It is our access into Afghanistan. It's a land-locked country, Afghanistan.

It's a country that has a Muslim population, has nuclear weapons, has an intelligence service that had long relationships with terrorists and the Taliban.

It is a country that stepped up and was a terrific supporter of the war on terrorism. They captured people in the urban areas. They tried to help out in the federally-administered tribal area and got a lot of people killed and didn't do very well in the FATA.

Now, what do we do about it? Well, I think what we do is, we say, Look, it's an important relationship. Why don't we try to calm it down, conduct diplomacy, private diplomacy, and not run around yelling and screaming and pointing fingers.

Our congressmen can yell and scream. Their parliament can yell and scream. But I would think the government would sit down and say, OK, they've got their problems, we've got ours. We need that relationship. And they need that relationship. Why don't we find areas where we can agree?

VAN SUSTEREN: But they want an apology. And we -- the United States has said, We regret the deaths of those soldiers, but that's the hang-up, is they want an apology from the United States. And the United States says it was joint error. And so the United States won't apologize.

RUMSFELD: Yes, I -- without knowing the facts, I wouldn't know what the answer to that would be. I can say this. The -- the -- the fact pattern would determine what our behavior ought to be. And it is unclear to me.

VAN SUSTEREN: What I think is sort of unusual in all of this is that we are now bringing supplies in through Russia, through the northern part of Afghanistan. And we -- we're grateful that Russia is letting us bring our supplies in to help our troops.

And on the other hand, we're having a very difficult time with Russia over Syria. So on the one hand, they're helping us -- of course, we're paying for it -- and on the other hand, they're -- you know, they're doing something that we find egregious.

RUMSFELD: You know, the relationship with Russia's complicated, as well. That reset button didn't work, and we've got real problems with that country and the things they're doing, the assistance they're providing to Iran with respect to their nuclear program, their unwillingness to be terribly helpful with respect to North Korea, their assistance to their close friend, Syria.

In so many respects, they are -- I mean, they sold I don't know how many thousands of AK-47s to Chavez in Venezuela. So they make a pattern of working with countries that are unfriendly to the United States. And this is nothing new.

VAN SUSTEREN: Are we drifting back towards the era of the cold war?

RUMSFELD: Oh, I don't think so. I think that -- Russia is a totally different thing than the Soviet Union was during the cold war. I mean, Russia's got a -- a -- probably a GDP about the size of Portugal, except for their energy.

They've problems with their borders with people. They've got Muslim problems with their population. They've got alcohol problems. They've got a large prison population. They have difficulty with their conscripts and their military.

They've got an outflow of educated people who are going to better places. They have trouble attracting industry outside the energy business because of the rule of law issues and corruption. So it is a totally different thing from the Soviet Union.

VAN SUSTEREN: What's your position on Law of the Sea treaty?

RUMSFELD: I am -- I testified against the Law of the Sea treaty. I think that there are some good things in it that our military and our navy would like and would benefit us. There's a degree of certainty that the business community would achieve, which is a plus also.

But when you weigh it against the concept that's in there -- the concept goes to something called the -- the whole idea that -- that the high seas are the property of humanity, of mankind, meaning they're not owned by anybody, therefore they are un-owned.

And this proposes to create a constitution for the high seas with a legislature, an executive, a judicial body, and give away to undeveloped countries, developing countries, land-locked countries what looks to be in the neighborhood of certainly billions, probably tens of billions, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars over time from royalties that companies that go out and mine these nodules in the high seas would have to pay into the thing called the -- in an Orwellian way, the International Seabed Authority. And the authority would make a lot of these decisions.

So I've never seen a treaty that suggests that that's the way to redistribute wealth in the world. It doesn't use the World Bank. It doesn't use the Congress with AID programs. It gives it to this authority, billions of dollars, undoubtedly, and the authority makes the decision as to how they're going to give that money away to developing countries.