not only did rumsfeld say that iraq had wmds, but he also said "we know where they are." how is that not a lie?
that's my point. If he was lying the whole time, why would he say he knew where they were right before he was about to be exposed?
why did bush repeatedly say that there was a link between iraq and 9-11 when there is absolutely no proof? why does the white house claim that they are allowed to use wiretaps without following the proper legal procedures? why did we hold "suspected terrorists" for months and even years without giving them due process of law? why did we authorize using torture at guantanamo bay?
Maybe it's because they think that they can get away with it. The press sits there like a fly-specked turd and does nothing.
not only did rumsfeld say that iraq had wmds, but he also said "we know where they are." how is that not a lie?
that's my point. If he was lying the whole time, why would he say he knew where they were right before he was about to be exposed?
Because he knew that once the lie was exposed that there would be no consequences?
His backers do not care that he lied. His boss does not care that he lied. It makes no differences what others in the military think, he is still their boss. It does not matter what the French think.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this it is; lying does not matter as long as you are in the political majority.
Please remember that he was not quickly exposed. In fact you still don't think he has been exposed. Over the course of years first one, then another, then an other search and study was done to determine if their were WMD. The whole time "journalist" were writing articles about how they must have been spirited to Syria, or that they were buried in the desert. Even in the video above he says something about how it appears that he may have been wrong.
Despite all these lies he still is secratary of state with the full support of you and his boss.
not only did rumsfeld say that iraq had wmds, but he also said "we know where they are." how is that not a lie?
that's my point. If he was lying the whole time, why would he say he knew where they were right before he was about to be exposed?
Because he knew that once the lie was exposed that there would be no consequences?
His backers do not care that he lied. His boss does not care that he lied. It makes no differences what others in the military think, he is still their boss. It does not matter what the French think.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this it is; lying does not matter as long as you are in the political majority.
Please remember that he was not quickly exposed. In fact you still don't think he has been exposed. Over the course of years first one, then another, then an other search and study was done to determine if their were WMD. The whole time "journalist" were writing articles about how they must have been spirited to Syria, or that they were buried in the desert. Even in the video above he says something about how it appears that he may have been wrong.
Despite all these lies he still is secratary of state with the full support of you and his boss.
Dan
This does not address my argument. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. Prove to me that Rumsfeld knew there were no wmds but said he knew where they were anyway. And for you to say there has been no consequence is crazy. The fact that the wmd did not turn up has sapped support for a war that I still think we must win, it has contributed to political pressure on the hill and the military for rumsfeld to resign, it would have cost bush re-election had Kerry not alligned with the angry left. But more to the point, using Occam's razor, what is more plausible. That Rumsfeld believed there were wmd and then said so, or that he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was.
But more to the point, using Occam's razor, what is more plausible. That Rumsfeld believed there were wmd and then said so, or that he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was to win even more support for a gigantic money-making venture.
not only did rumsfeld say that iraq had wmds, but he also said "we know where they are." how is that not a lie?
that's my point. If he was lying the whole time, why would he say he knew where they were right before he was about to be exposed?
why did bush repeatedly say that there was a link between iraq and 9-11 when there is absolutely no proof? why does the white house claim that they are allowed to use wiretaps without following the proper legal procedures? why did we hold "suspected terrorists" for months and even years without giving them due process of law? why did we authorize using torture at guantanamo bay?
I think I get it. You don't approve of the president's war or his policies. On some of these points I am also skeptical. But on the question of wmd, I have always thought the critics who have said the administration's belief they existed amounted to a lie, have been in need of a remedial English class. On the 9-11 link to Iraq, the evidence is clear that there was no Iraqi connection to the plotters of the attacks. There is also quite a bit of evidence showing contacts and potential for collaboration between al Qaeda and Iraq. The most recent being the declassified Iraqi account of a meeting between Saddam's intel chief of bin laden in Sudan. We also know that one of the 1993 WTC plotters, escaped to Iraq after the attack.
But more to the point, using Occam's razor, what is more plausible. That Rumsfeld believed there were wmd and then said so, or that he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was to win even more support for a gigantic money-making venture.
Again. You miss my point. The support for the "gigantic money making venture" had at this point been secured. The case that Saddam was concealing WMD was made already by Powell, Tenet the president and to a lesser extent even Hans Blix (with his 12 remaining disarmament tasks). Congress had authorized the force, the UN diplomacy had run its course, there was a coalition of the willing.
I think I get it. You don't approve of the president's war or his policies. On some of these points I am also skeptical. But on the question of wmd, I have always thought the critics who have said the administration's belief they existed amounted to a lie, have been in need of a remedial English class.
i really don't get your point.
to me (and many others), it was "lying" for bush to pick and choose as to what intelligence supported his predetermined plan (from before he even set foot in the white house) to go to war. i don't think you make a good argument by saying that there was "some intelligence" suggesting that iraq had wmds. there is some intelligence suggesting that osama bin laden was seen at a dunkin donuts in long island.
we went to war over this intelligence, and rumsfeld is a liar, at best, for saying that he knew where wmd's were. he lied because he obviously didn't know where they were. what is that so hard for you to understand? it was a lie. he wasn't mistaken because he said "we know" as if it were fact when he didn't have facts in front of him, just speculation. that is lying.
not only did rumsfeld say that iraq had wmds, but he also said "we know where they are." how is that not a lie?
that's my point. If he was lying the whole time, why would he say he knew where they were right before he was about to be exposed?
Because he knew that once the lie was exposed that there would be no consequences?
His backers do not care that he lied. His boss does not care that he lied. It makes no differences what others in the military think, he is still their boss. It does not matter what the French think.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this it is; lying does not matter as long as you are in the political majority.
Please remember that he was not quickly exposed. In fact you still don't think he has been exposed. Over the course of years first one, then another, then an other search and study was done to determine if their were WMD. The whole time "journalist" were writing articles about how they must have been spirited to Syria, or that they were buried in the desert. Even in the video above he says something about how it appears that he may have been wrong.
Despite all these lies he still is secretary of state with the full support of you and his boss.
Dan
This does not address my argument. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. Prove to me that Rumsfeld knew there were no wmds but said he knew where they were anyway. And for you to say there has been no consequence is crazy. The fact that the wmd did not turn up has sapped support for a war that I still think we must win, it has contributed to political pressure on the hill and the military for rumsfeld to resign, it would have cost bush re-election had Kerry not alligned with the angry left. But more to the point, using Occam's razor, what is more plausible. That Rumsfeld believed there were wmd and then said so, or that he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was.
I will accept he did not lie, he was wrong. I will agree with you that Rumsfeld believed there were WMD.
To me this proves that he ignored good intelligence and recklessly promoted a belief over facts. When he said he knew where they were, he was not really talking about what he "knew", but what he "believed". This belief was clearly not based on fact.
How this makes him a better secretary of state I am not sure.
I think I get it. You don't approve of the president's war or his policies. On some of these points I am also skeptical. But on the question of wmd, I have always thought the critics who have said the administration's belief they existed amounted to a lie, have been in need of a remedial English class.
i really don't get your point.
to me (and many others), it was "lying" for bush to pick and choose as to what intelligence supported his predetermined plan (from before he even set foot in the white house) to go to war. i don't think you make a good argument by saying that there was "some intelligence" suggesting that iraq had wmds. there is some intelligence suggesting that osama bin laden was seen at a dunkin donuts in long island.
we went to war over this intelligence, and rumsfeld is a liar, at best, for saying that he knew where wmd's were. he lied because he obviously didn't know where they were. what is that so hard for you to understand? it was a lie. he wasn't mistaken because he said "we know" as if it were fact when he didn't have facts in front of him, just speculation. that is lying.
1) There was a consensus document called the national intelligence estimate, signed off by all the intelligence agencies which said with few caveats that Saddam was concealing a chem and bio program. There was more dissent on nukes.
2) In order to say Rummy was lying you would have to prove he was deliberately concealing or distorting the information he had. In hindsight learning that Rumsfeld did not know where the wmd was, when he said he did, does not make him a liar. It makes him wrong. Do you understand the difference. Rumsfeld is only a liar if he said he knew where the wmd were, when in fact he knew there was no wmd to be found.
3) The plan that you speak of to invade Iraq is a fiction. There was a plan to arm the Iraqi opposition and possibly provide them air cover. The plan to invade Iraq was not discussed or considered until after 9-11. But it's true that Bush supported regime change for Iraq, in the same way Congress and the Clinton administration did in the Iraq Liberation Act.
he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was.
If you are going to invoke Occam's razor, then I shall invoke Begging The Question.
Zing!
Really, though. This administration is constantly closing the barn door after the cows are gone. Why is it so unbelieveable that Rummy would keep on lying for if no other reason to save face? I mean, damn. Occam's razor? It's harder for me to belive that the best intelligence agencies in the world handed the administration such ridiculously, such laughably bad information (and then turned around and denied they ever did), rather than the President's administration wanted to fabricate facts to fit their war. Why did Rummy keep lying long after it was necessary? What does it matter? Seems like a red herring to me.
McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words. Here are Rumsfeld's words as spoken in an interview with ABC News. "We know where they [WMD] are[/b]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." To repeat.... McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Rumsfeld: I did not.[/b]
You, V, say he was not lying, he was mistaken. What I am trying to say is you are giving him the Colbert defense.
He said he knew where they were, because in his gut he knew where they were. He believed they were there then because that is what his gut told him. Today he will only say "apparently" they were not. Seems to me that "apparently" he is not convinced. I guess that is because he was not lying. He believed it then, and he believes it now, and nothing that has happened in between matters.
As for the daily intelligence briefing, have you seen them? Do you believe that in the run up to the war they were void of political pressure? Personally I believe that Rumsfeld depended on military intelligence and that he reassigned anyone who didn't provide the intelligence he wanted.
I'm going to stand up for Vitamin on one main point in this argument.
1) I do not think Rumsfeld lied when he said that Iraq had WMD. You can argue about the details, but most government's in the world believed this. When he said "We know where they are" he was basing this on some basic intelligence findings, which proved wrong. Whether these WMD were a threat is where the problem arises because no one, not even England, thought they were, but that's another argument.
2) U.S. intelligence basically had their heads up their asses when it came to intelligence on Iraq's WMD. I think they showed a complete bias to believe anything bad about Iraq and discard anything that questioned these negative views. For example, the head of Iraq's WMD program had defected after the 1st Gulf War and told them that Iraq had destroyed its WMD, dismantled its nuclear program, and that its nuclear bomb plans were unworkable anyways, and this was not believed. When the general said that Iraq had been deceiving U.N. inspections this became prime time news. The CIA during the Bush administration also set up a program to contact family members of scientists working on Iraq's WMD/Nuclear program. All of them basically said that Iraq wasn't working on either program. This too was discarded becauase it didn't fit the CIA's worldview. There are some completely ridiculous findings they made as well. For example, Iraq had rebuilt a building involved with its nuclear program that had been bombed by the U.S. Because it was rebuilt this was used as proof that Iraq had EXPANDED its nuclear program. They had no idea what was going on inside, it was just the fact that they had rebuilt a bombed out building that had been used in the 1980s for Iraq's nuclear program. Another example, they had a press clipping that reported Saddam met with the country's top nuclear scientists. The CIA couldn't identify a single person in the photo besides Saddam, but this too was used as proof that Iraq had EXPANDED its nuclear program to one larger than before the Gulf War. Its with intelligence findings like this that the Bush administration was told that Iraq's WMD/Nukes were a threat. The problem with the Bush administration was that they took the worse case scenarios and made those public, sometimes even using intelligence they were told not to like the Niger claim, because they wanted to justify the war.
3) Some of the points he brings up like U.N. inspectors, magnets being bought by Iraq, etc. I disagree with, but those are sidenotes to the main point of this argument.
I wrote a little essay about both the Downing Street Memos and the following one that were just made public. The British said that Iraq had WMD, but that they were not a threat. The second memo from a meeting in late January 2003 outlines how the U.N. inspectors were not turning up the smoking gun necessary to justify a war so they came up with some other ways to start one. This while both Bush and Blair were saying publicly that war was the last resort.
Again, Rumsfeld wasn't lying when he said Iraq had WMD. They all thought Saddam had them, it was a matter of whether they were a threat and/or a justification for a war.
What the administration DID lie about were ties with Al Qaeda. By my count, they had at least 30 intelligence briefings, some by their own people, all saying there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Only 2 groups said such a connection existed 1) The Pentagon's Policy Counterterrorism Group staffed by neoconservatives with no background in intelligence who were told to find such a connection, 2) The Iraqi National Congress who came forward with Iraqi defectors for anything the Pentagon wanted, I think all of which turned out to be full of it.
Here's a copy of my piece on the British memos and a link to the thread about the things the administration DID lie about.
In the last year or so a series of secret British documents have become public about the lead up to the war. The first set of documents are known as the Downing Street memos. British Professor Philippe Sands first made the second memo public in his book Lawless World in January 2006. Recently this second memo has returned to the news as the New York Times obtained a copy of the 5-page secret document. The importance of these memos is that they expose the secret planning for the war going on behind the public statements by the two governments. What they reveal is the British government???s skepticism over the Bush administration???s justifications for war, and both Bush???s and British Prime Minister Blair???s desire to go to war despite publicly claiming that it was a last resort.
Downing Street Memos
The first set of documents was the Downing Street memos. These became public in mid-2005, and consist of of memos detailing a series of high-ranking meetings between British and American officials in March and July 2002.
According to the memos head of British foreign intelligence MI6, Sir Lord Richard Dearlove, after meeting with CIA Chief George Tenet believed that the U.S. had decided upon war. The memo said, ???There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.??? English Foreign Secretary Jack Straw believed, ???It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action.??? The U.S. military was expected to brief Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Bush in August 2002 on the war plans. The British speculated that the war would begin by January 2002 after U.S. Congressional elections.
To this day, Bush claims that he did not want war as he recently said in a press conference. Leading up to the invasion he said that war was a last resort. The Downing Street memos reveal that at least by the summer of 2002 that decision had already been made.
After hearing the U.S. plans the British thought that the case against Iraq was flimsy. MI6 Chief Dearlove said that, ???The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.??? Critics of the war have taken this to mean that the administration was pressuring the intelligence community or lying about intelligence to convince the public for war. I take that statement to mean that the administration was only using reports that supported their argument for attacking Iraq.
One of the Bush administration???s major claims was that Iraq was linked with Al Qaeda. The British found no evidence to support this however. One memo states, ???US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida is so far frankly unconvincing.??? Another memo by Foreign Secretary Straw said, ???In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL [bin Laden] and Al Qaida.??? This supports U.S. intelligence reports that found no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Bush administration received over 30 assessments to this effect, yet the Bush administration made it one of their main claims. If U.S. intelligence and the British didn???t believe this claim, what was the Bush administration basing their statements upon?
On the case against Iraq???s WMD the memos state, ???But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.??? One of the major claims by war supporters is that most countries in the world believed that Iraq had WMD. These memos don???t doubt that claim, but it shows that England, America???s closest ally in the war, not only didn???t think that Iraq was a threat, but that it was a weak justification for attacking Iraq. U.S. intelligence and the administration also claimed that Iraq not only had WMD, but that it had restarted its WMD and nuclear programs, and these were now larger than before the first Gulf War. The Downing Street memos question this claim as well by stating, ???Iraq???s nuclear & WMD programs had not advanced in recent years.???
Since this was one of the main parts of the U.S. case against Iraq, the British pushed for a return of U.N. weapons inspectors. If they found weapons that would be a legal justification for the war, something that was very important to British officials working within the Blair government. The British Attorney General said that simply wanting regime change was not a legal basis for invasion. The Attorney General summarized that only a U.N. resolution would provide cover for war. The Attorney General also said that relying upon old U.N. resolutions against Iraq would be difficult, thus advocating for a new resolution to the Security Council. Blair added that it would be easier to go to war if Saddam rejected any kind of U.N. resolution or inspectors. The memos noted that the U.S. did not think the U.N. was necessary.
Within the Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell and the State Department were the only ones pushing for a similar U.N. route. Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives throughout the administration were staunchly anti-U.N. dating back several years. They advocated unilateral military action by the U.S., and did not want to be entangled by international bodies or agreements. The memos say, ???The NSC [National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraq regimes record.???
What the Downing Street memos reveal is that the U.N. route was a means to an end, war, not a way to avoid it. Blair, as late as February 2003, a month before the war started, was saying that a war could be avoided if Saddam complied with the U.N. The Downing Street memos show that Blair was hoping that U.N. resolutions and inspections would provide the justification for an attack either by Saddam rejecting them or the U.N. finding WMD. As Foreign Secretary Jack Straw argued, ???We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.??? The main issue became convincing the U.S. to go to the U.N. To this end, Blair sent a personal memo to Bush and several advisors t
o meet with the White House in late-July 2002 to convince the U.S. of this strategy. Several days later Bush and Blair spoke on the phone and agreed they were going to invade Iraq. Publicly Bush and Blair both said that no decision had been made whether to go to war or not.
Blair-Bush Meeting Memo
The second secret document reveal was a 5-page memo about a meeting in the White House between Blair, Bush and top aides on 1/31/03. It was written by David Manning, Blair???s top foreign policy advisor. At the time, U.N. inspectors were looking for WMD and other illegal materials in Iraq under a new U.N. resolution that the U.S. had successfully gotten passed. There was a debate within the U.S. administration and between the U.S. and England about whether a second U.N. resolution was needed to authorize war or not.
The Blair-Bush meeting reveals that Bush did not think that a second resolution was needed. Manning wrote, ???Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning.??? Manning continued by saying that the U.S. and England had already agreed upon a start date for the war, ???The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,??? 2003. According to the memo, ???This was when the bombing would begin.??? Bush repeatedly said that the U.S. and England did not need a second U.N. resolution to start this attack, but if one were to be passed it needed to be soon so that the war could start.
The main problem Bush and Blair discussed was finding an excuse to start the war. Both Bush and Blair acknowledged that U.N. inspectors had found no WMD, and that none might be found in the future. This robbed the U.S. and England of one of its main justifications for war. Faced with this dilemma Bush came up with several different scenarios to provoke an armed conflict. One plan was to paint a U.S. spy plane in U.N. colors and fly it over Iraq with U.S. fighter protection in hopes that Saddam would order an attack on it. Bush also hoped that an Iraqi defector might be found that would go public with claims about Iraq???s WMD. Another faint hope was that Saddam would simply be assassinated.
Both Bush and Blair thought the war would be over quickly and that creating a new Iraqi government would be difficult, but not impossible. Bush predicted that it was, ???Unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups.???
This second memo provides further evidence that Bush and Blair were lying when they said that war was a last resort. Iraq was a war of choice backed by various elements within the U.S. administration with a variety of motivations from eliminating a threat to the supply of oil to the West, to provide another example of the transformation of the U.S. military to a high-tech force, to promoting democracy in the Middle East to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism. Claims about WMD, links with terrorism, and U.N. resolutions and inspectors were all just excuses to justify the war, not the cause.
You think my premise is ludicrous because you share their somewhat backward attitude toward delivering the news. If there was in fact as "leftist media" in this country, I wouldn't put any more faith in what they say than I do right wing crap like Fox.
You're deluded.
you just said there is no left wing media in the US and then claimed that im deluded?
Its astonishing how people cannot understand very simple arguments. Accusing a critique of being flimsy is not neccesarily a defense of what was originally being critiqued. Do you understand this? how many times do I have to tell you people, address the arguments in front of you and not the right wing caricature that lives in your head.
My argument is not a defense of fox news(I dont even watch it). It was that your post was a result more of your mind being trained to automatically object to anything the 'right' does than a result of principled beliefs on the appropriate role of the media.
What Fox actually aired about Zarqawi was basically a press release by the Pentagon to try to make fun of and discredit him. It was just repeating what they got from the military.
Comments
Saying that it would make no sense for him to do so doesn't prove that he didn't. That's a flimsy argument.
Maybe it's because they think that they can get away with it. The press sits there like a fly-specked turd and does nothing.
Because he knew that once the lie was exposed that there would be no consequences?
His backers do not care that he lied. His boss does not care that he lied. It makes no differences what others in the military think, he is still their boss. It does not matter what the French think.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this it is; lying does not matter as long as you are in the political majority.
Please remember that he was not quickly exposed. In fact you still don't think he has been exposed. Over the course of years first one, then another, then an other search and study was done to determine if their were WMD. The whole time "journalist" were writing articles about how they must have been spirited to Syria, or that they were buried in the desert. Even in the video above he says something about how it appears that he may have been wrong.
Despite all these lies he still is secratary of state with the full support of you and his boss.
Dan
This does not address my argument. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. Prove to me that Rumsfeld knew there were no wmds but said he knew where they were anyway. And for you to say there has been no consequence is crazy. The fact that the wmd did not turn up has sapped support for a war that I still think we must win, it has contributed to political pressure on the hill and the military for rumsfeld to resign, it would have cost bush re-election had Kerry not alligned with the angry left. But more to the point, using Occam's razor, what is more plausible. That Rumsfeld believed there were wmd and then said so, or that he recklessly kept repeating something he knew was false just to prove how untouchable he was.
I think I get it. You don't approve of the president's war or his policies. On some of these points I am also skeptical. But on the question of wmd, I have always thought the critics who have said the administration's belief they existed amounted to a lie, have been in need of a remedial English class. On the 9-11 link to Iraq, the evidence is clear that there was no Iraqi connection to the plotters of the attacks. There is also quite a bit of evidence showing contacts and potential for collaboration between al Qaeda and Iraq. The most recent being the declassified Iraqi account of a meeting between Saddam's intel chief of bin laden in Sudan. We also know that one of the 1993 WTC plotters, escaped to Iraq after the attack.
If you are going to invoke Occam's razor, then I shall invoke Begging The Question.
Again. You miss my point. The support for the "gigantic money making venture" had at this point been secured. The case that Saddam was concealing WMD was made already by Powell, Tenet the president and to a lesser extent even Hans Blix (with his 12 remaining disarmament tasks). Congress had authorized the force, the UN diplomacy had run its course, there was a coalition of the willing.
i really don't get your point.
to me (and many others), it was "lying" for bush to pick and choose as to what intelligence supported his predetermined plan (from before he even set foot in the white house) to go to war. i don't think you make a good argument by saying that there was "some intelligence" suggesting that iraq had wmds. there is some intelligence suggesting that osama bin laden was seen at a dunkin donuts in long island.
we went to war over this intelligence, and rumsfeld is a liar, at best, for saying that he knew where wmd's were. he lied because he obviously didn't know where they were. what is that so hard for you to understand? it was a lie. he wasn't mistaken because he said "we know" as if it were fact when he didn't have facts in front of him, just speculation. that is lying.
I will accept he did not lie, he was wrong. I will agree with you that Rumsfeld believed there were WMD.
To me this proves that he ignored good intelligence and recklessly promoted a belief over facts. When he said he knew where they were, he was not really talking about what he "knew", but what he "believed". This belief was clearly not based on fact.
How this makes him a better secretary of state I am not sure.
1) There was a consensus document called the national intelligence estimate, signed off by all the intelligence agencies which said with few caveats that Saddam was concealing a chem and bio program. There was more dissent on nukes.
2) In order to say Rummy was lying you would have to prove he was deliberately concealing or distorting the information he had. In hindsight learning that Rumsfeld did not know where the wmd was, when he said he did, does not make him a liar. It makes him wrong. Do you understand the difference. Rumsfeld is only a liar if he said he knew where the wmd were, when in fact he knew there was no wmd to be found.
3) The plan that you speak of to invade Iraq is a fiction. There was a plan to arm the Iraqi opposition and possibly provide them air cover. The plan to invade Iraq was not discussed or considered until after 9-11. But it's true that Bush supported regime change for Iraq, in the same way Congress and the Clinton administration did in the Iraq Liberation Act.
Zing!
Really, though. This administration is constantly closing the barn door after the cows are gone. Why is it so unbelieveable that Rummy would keep on lying for if no other reason to save face? I mean, damn. Occam's razor? It's harder for me to belive that the best intelligence agencies in the world handed the administration such ridiculously, such laughably bad information (and then turned around and denied they ever did), rather than the President's administration wanted to fabricate facts to fit their war. Why did Rummy keep lying long after it was necessary? What does it matter? Seems like a red herring to me.
McGovern: You said you knew where they were.
Rumsfeld: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and...
McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.
Rumsfeld: My words-my words were that-no-no, wait a minute--wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second....
Here are Rumsfeld's words as spoken in an interview with ABC News.
"We know where they [WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
To repeat....
McGovern: You said you knew where they were.
Rumsfeld: I did not.
McGovern: Well we???re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.
Rumsfeld: Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.
McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That???s also???
Rumsfeld: He was also in Baghdad.
McGovern: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital.
Come on, these people aren???t idiots. They know the story.
rumsfeld= liar
That sure sounds like a lie to me.
If I were to tell you I know something, when I do not, wouldn't that be considered lying?
Would you testify in court that you knew something, when you didn't?
This argument is ridiculous. Whether he was "wrong" or "lying", he, and many others, should be held accountable.
Don't you agree?
welcome to the wonderful world of politcal spin.
The truth is secondary to the sales pitch
He said he knew where they were, because in his gut he knew where they were. He believed they were there then because that is what his gut told him. Today he will only say "apparently" they were not. Seems to me that "apparently" he is not convinced. I guess that is because he was not lying. He believed it then, and he believes it now, and nothing that has happened in between matters.
As for the daily intelligence briefing, have you seen them? Do you believe that in the run up to the war they were void of political pressure? Personally I believe that Rumsfeld depended on military intelligence and that he reassigned anyone who didn't provide the intelligence he wanted.
lying? mistaken? delusional? call it whatever!
...but it all comes back to incompetence[/b].
This makes me laugh.
yo Frank!
1) I do not think Rumsfeld lied when he said that Iraq had WMD. You can argue about the details, but most government's in the world believed this. When he said "We know where they are" he was basing this on some basic intelligence findings, which proved wrong. Whether these WMD were a threat is where the problem arises because no one, not even England, thought they were, but that's another argument.
2) U.S. intelligence basically had their heads up their asses when it came to intelligence on Iraq's WMD. I think they showed a complete bias to believe anything bad about Iraq and discard anything that questioned these negative views. For example, the head of Iraq's WMD program had defected after the 1st Gulf War and told them that Iraq had destroyed its WMD, dismantled its nuclear program, and that its nuclear bomb plans were unworkable anyways, and this was not believed. When the general said that Iraq had been deceiving U.N. inspections this became prime time news. The CIA during the Bush administration also set up a program to contact family members of scientists working on Iraq's WMD/Nuclear program. All of them basically said that Iraq wasn't working on either program. This too was discarded becauase it didn't fit the CIA's worldview. There are some completely ridiculous findings they made as well. For example, Iraq had rebuilt a building involved with its nuclear program that had been bombed by the U.S. Because it was rebuilt this was used as proof that Iraq had EXPANDED its nuclear program. They had no idea what was going on inside, it was just the fact that they had rebuilt a bombed out building that had been used in the 1980s for Iraq's nuclear program. Another example, they had a press clipping that reported Saddam met with the country's top nuclear scientists. The CIA couldn't identify a single person in the photo besides Saddam, but this too was used as proof that Iraq had EXPANDED its nuclear program to one larger than before the Gulf War. Its with intelligence findings like this that the Bush administration was told that Iraq's WMD/Nukes were a threat. The problem with the Bush administration was that they took the worse case scenarios and made those public, sometimes even using intelligence they were told not to like the Niger claim, because they wanted to justify the war.
3) Some of the points he brings up like U.N. inspectors, magnets being bought by Iraq, etc. I disagree with, but those are sidenotes to the main point of this argument.
I wrote a little essay about both the Downing Street Memos and the following one that were just made public. The British said that Iraq had WMD, but that they were not a threat. The second memo from a meeting in late January 2003 outlines how the U.N. inspectors were not turning up the smoking gun necessary to justify a war so they came up with some other ways to start one. This while both Bush and Blair were saying publicly that war was the last resort.
Again, Rumsfeld wasn't lying when he said Iraq had WMD. They all thought Saddam had them, it was a matter of whether they were a threat and/or a justification for a war.
What the administration DID lie about were ties with Al Qaeda. By my count, they had at least 30 intelligence briefings, some by their own people, all saying there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Only 2 groups said such a connection existed 1) The Pentagon's Policy Counterterrorism Group staffed by neoconservatives with no background in intelligence who were told to find such a connection, 2) The Iraqi National Congress who came forward with Iraqi defectors for anything the Pentagon wanted, I think all of which turned out to be full of it.
Here's a copy of my piece on the British memos and a link to the thread about the things the administration DID lie about.
http://soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=513396&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
you just said there is no left wing media in the US and then claimed that im deluded?
Its astonishing how people cannot understand very simple arguments. Accusing a critique of being flimsy is not neccesarily a defense of what was originally being critiqued. Do you understand this? how many times do I have to tell you people, address the arguments in front of you and not the right wing caricature that lives in your head.
My argument is not a defense of fox news(I dont even watch it). It was that your post was a result more of your mind being trained to automatically object to anything the 'right' does than a result of principled beliefs on the appropriate role of the media.