Rumsfeld lied on MSNBC and was caught red-handed. I already posted the proof. Pay attention. The Bush lies and cover ups brigade continues funded by corporate special interest money out to fleece consumers, the environment and the treasury. Care to debate that?
Sure, if you really want an honest debate, let's start there.
It so happens that there is a video of the supposed "lie" that Rumsfeld was "caught" on. It illustrates perfectly the sort of word twisting that is going on. The video cuts off Rumsfeld before he responds, but does contain the quotes in which Rumsfeld supposedly lied:
moveon.org
Rumsfeld said that neither he nor the President nor anyone else in the Administration had labelled Saddam Hussein an "immediate threat" during the buildup to the war in Iraq.
MSNBC then confronted Rumsfeld with two statements he made in September 2002:
“Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.”
“No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.”
Both statements were made by Rumsfeld on September 18, 2002, less than a week after Bush's speech to the UN challenging that body to confront Saddam's refusal to abide by inspections and other agreements and resolutions. This was BEFORE the inspections resolution, before inspections resumed, and at a time when it had been four years since any inspectors had been allowed access to Iraq.
Let's look at each statement. The first one does not use the term "immediate threat" at all. It simply says that while some think the threat is in a 5-7 year time frame, Rumsfeld himself "would not be so certain." I think that's an entirely appropriate thing to say. Bear in mind that no inspectors had been given any access to Iraq in four years. President Clinton, shortly after the inspectors had been kicked out, launched air strikes (400 cruise missiles and over 100 warplanes) for three days against Iraq (without UN approval, I might add), and said in defending his decision to do so:
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.
I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.
Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.
The inspectors undertook this mission first 7.5 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire.
The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.
The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.
cnn.com
Tony Blair likewise talked in detail about Hussein's lack of cooperation with inspectors as a reason for military action:
cnn.com
Three days later, Clinton and Blair called off the attacks. Hussein declared victory:
Despite the devastation, Iraqi leader Hussein seemed triumphant Sunday.
Dressed in military fatigues and invoking the name of God, Hussein told his people in a televised speech that their country had achieved victory.
"You were up to the level that your leadership and brother and comrade Saddam Hussein had hoped you would be at ... so God rewarded you and delighted your hearts with the crown of victory," Hussein said in a broadcast on the Qatari satellite television station al-Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Iraqis cursed the United States and Clinton on Sunday as they climbed out of bomb shelters following the end of the bombing campaign.
"Long live Saddam! Death! Death to Clinton!" several hundred demonstrators shouted in central Baghdad.
cnn.com
The inspectors were not allowed back in. Four more years passed. Evidence of whether still-unaccounted for weapons were in existence, or new weapons were under development, could not be obtained with certainty, though it was clear that Saddam was thumbing his nose at his obligations to permit the inspections process to resume. Other rogue nations were learning that if you agree to inspections of your weapons programs, you need not actually permit the inspections in any meaningful way. That lesson had, and has, disturbing implications for the security of the world.
Rumsfeld's first statement was simply that he could not be certain what the state of the Iraqi nuclear program was. What is wrong with saying that? In fact, saying that is a clear admission that the Administration was not certain whether the threat was immediate. Rumsfeld does not use the word "immediate" in that first quote. In fact, he quotes a 5-7 year time frame and says, "we can't be certain." Well, without inspectors (as of that date we weren't even close to having inspectors go back in), without full cooperation with those inspectors (something that was never attained throughout months of inspections), Rumsfeld was absolutely correct in saying that. And it does not contradict his later assertion in the least.
The second quote MSNBC used to challenge Rumsfeld does use the term "immediate threat", though in a different way. Rumsfeld said (again before the inspections resumed) "No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." He does not say, "the threat is going to result in something awful tomorrow", or "next month", or "right now". He says, no terror state poses a "more" immediate threat than Iraq.
Yes, he used the words "immediate threat", so I suppose you can argue they tripped him up. But he used them in an entirely different context. He was saying, this is the threat we should deal with first, it is the "most" immediate threat. Because of Saddam's refusal to cooperate and permit inspections, and because of his past use of chemical weapons, the large stockpiles of those weapons which had been found and destroyed in earlier inspections and the quantities which remained unaccounted for, that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
It's interesting that MSNBC found no statement in the five months leading up to the actual war using the "immediate threat" language, even in that far different context. Indeed, in Bush's own State of the Union Address, he very explicitly stated that the threat was NOT "imminent":
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
whitehouse.gov
Rumsfeld was referring to the many statements that we should not wait until the threat was "imminent" when he said that the Administration did not label Iraq an "immediate threat". Even when Rumsfeld himself supposedly labelled Iraq an "immediate threat" in September 2002, in one of the quotes he said he could not be certain if the threat was sooner than 5-7 years (hardly immediate, and hardly unreasonable given the lack of access given to the inspectors), and in the other he said no one else was a "more immediate threat", without commenting on how immediate a threat Iraq was. The Administration then went on to make it very clear that the threat was not imminent, and to lay out reasons why we should not wait until it became imminent.
You want to debate the issue, let's debate the entire context of statements. Including this one:
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
--John Kerry, October 9, 2002
Maybe Kerry didn't use the "immediate", but shouldn't the President of the United States also be protecting us against "real" and "grave" threats as well? |
