McGovern on Anderson Cooper...transcript...
Now we move on to the confrontation between Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and a retired CIA veteran on the facts that were used to make a case for the war in Iraq. It happened today at a speech Mr. Bush was giving in Atlanta -- I'm sorry -- Mr. Rumsfeld was giving in Atlanta -- to what he had every reason to believe would be a friendly crowd.
Instead, he was heckled repeatedly. More importantly, he was challenged on his facts and on his words.
Here's senior national correspondent John Roberts.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The secretary of defense is used to controversy and attacks on all sides. But today, in Atlanta, he took more incoming than we have ever seen, a full-on verbal assault by opponents of the Iraq war, who showed up to see him speak.
The first volley came from a woman who brought a banner, accusing Rumsfeld of war crimes.
(BOOING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) nuclear war in Iraq!
ROBERTS: As most protesters are, in a full of administration- friendly folks, she lost her banner and was quickly led out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't want to hear it.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Good for you, Sergeant York.
ROBERTS: The next attack came a short five minutes late, another woman with another banner, accusing Rumsfeld of lying.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You lied.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You lied that Iraq's oil would pay for the war! You lied about everything!
ROBERTS: But this one, the secretary just couldn't let go.
RUMSFELD: You know, that charge is frequently leveled against the president for one reason or another, and it is so wrong and so unfair and so destructive of a free system, where people need to trust each other and government.
ROBERTS: In truth, Rumsfeld never said Iraq's oil would pay for the war. But his then-deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, did say it would pay for the aftermath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Hecklers, like the one who stood with his back to the secretary during the speech, couldn't rattle a man with Rumsfeld's steel.
But, in an extraordinary piece of public theater, Ray McGovern, who claimed to be a former CIA analyst, took Rumsfeld on mano a mano over prewar claims Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
MCGOVERN: You said you knew where they were.
RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were, and we were just...
MCGOVERN: You said you knew where they were near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and north, east, south and west of there. Those are your words.
RUMSFELD: My words -- my words were that -- no, no, no wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.
MCGOVERN: This is America, huh?
(APPLAUSE)
ROBERTS: And, in America, we fact-check. And we found that, in an appearance on ABC's "This Week" three years ago, Rumsfeld did say those words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THIS WEEK," MARCH 30, 2003)
RUMSFELD: We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: With what appeared to be the facts on his side, McGovern kept going, an exchange that lasted a full two minutes and 35 seconds.
MCGOVERN: I would just like an honest answer.
RUMSFELD: I'm giving it to you.
MCGOVERN: We're talking about lies and your allegation that there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. Was that a lie or were you misled?
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Hold on. Did Rumsfeld ever say bulletproof? According to "The New York Times," he did, September 27, 2002, in Atlanta.
And, a month later, he admitted saying it. But, a year after that, he told the National Press Club, bulletproof? Not me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said about a year ago that there was bulletproof evidence that Saddam Hussein -- of links between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks. When will the American public see that sort of evidence?
RUMSFELD: I did not say that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
RUMSFELD: And whoever said I said it is wrong.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: But back to the action in Atlanta.
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: You are -- let me -- let me give you an example. It's easy for you to make a charge, but why do you think that the men and women in uniform, every day, when they came out of Kuwait and went into Iraq, put on chemical weapon protective suits? Because they liked the style?
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
RUMSFELD: They honestly believed that there were chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons on his own people previously. He'd used them on his neighbor, the Iranians. And they believed he had those weapons. We believed he had those weapons.
MCGOVERN: That is what we call a non sequitur. It doesn't matter what the troops believe. It matters what you believe.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think, Mr. Secretary, the debate is over. We have other questions, in courtesy to the audience.
(APPLAUSE)
ROBERTS: And, with that, they declared an end to the face-off. But, unlike the other opponents of the war, McGovern took his seat and remained quiet through the rest the speech.
John Roberts, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, the man who challenged Secretary Rumsfeld was well informed, as any former CIA analyst would be. We will talk to Ray McGovern about his agenda and what he thought of the secretary's response to his questions.
Plus, Republicans divided over illegal immigrations. Some want all illegals evicted. Others call for a different plan -- at stake in the pivotal Latino vote. We will examine the Bush strategy ahead.
Also, the backlash over Monday's protests -- a look at the intensifying anger over illegal immigrants -- when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: More now on the man who confronted Secretary Rumsfeld today.
Ray McGovern is his name. He spent 27 years at CIA, serving under presidents from John F. Kennedy to the first President Bush. He was an analyst. He's been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group that's critical of the way the Bush administration used intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
I spoke about with Mr. McGovern earlier tonight about what Secretary Rumsfeld now thinks about the case he made for the war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Do you think he still believes that there were WMD?
MCGOVERN: I think still is the wrong word there.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You don't think he ever believed it?
MCGOVERN: No.
It's very clear that this was a very cynical attempt to do what they wanted to do, namely, make war on Iraq, and that they decided to do that shortly after 9/11.
And when my former colleague Paul Pillar, who was the most senior national intelligence officer for the Middle East and for counterterrorism, when he says, as he did just yesterday, that there was an organized campaign of manipulation of the intelligence to prove a tie between Iraq and al Qaeda, the objective, of course, to make the American people think that Saddam Hussein has something to do with 9/11, when Pillar comes out with that information, then I think we need to make sure the American people know that we knew at that time there was no such tie. And what Don Rumsfeld said at that time was that the evidence was bulletproof.
COOPER: And the bulletproof quote comes from a "New York Times" article. That was back in September 28 of -- of 2002. He didn't answer or respond to the bulletproof question at first.
You asked, basically -- you reiterated the bulletproof and said that he had indicted there was bulletproof evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. He then came back to it, though, and said, well, it's a fact that Zarqawi was in Iraq. And you pointed out that he -- well, what did you say then?
MCGOVERN: Well, you know, I was so glad that he disingenuously offered that, because Zarqawi was not under any al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein control. He was in the northern part of Iraq, where no one held sway, not Saddam Hussein, certainly not al Qaeda. And, so, to adduce Zarqawi as a link with al Qaeda was disingenuous...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: He did then go on to say, well, he was also in Baghdad. And you pointed out, yes, when he went to the hospital.
MCGOVERN: Yes, right. Baghdad was where the best hospital was when he needed treatment.
See, Rumsfeld is -- is above the fray. And he believes that the audience, and most of the audience there today, of course, was -- fits this mold -- they won't question him on these things. Who knows these details? Well, we know them. Why? Because it was our profession to follow such details.
And we used to be able to apply our techniques and our tradecraft to foreign leaders. And it's ironic in the extreme that we need to do media analysis and leadership studies on our own leaders to find out whether they're telling the truth or they're telling lies.
COOPER: In your first question, you asked him essentially about the bulletproof quote and about his -- the -- making a linkage between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government.
MCGOVERN: Yes.
COOPER: And you say, was that a lie or were you misled? Did that come from somewhere else?
Later on, you just categorize it outright as a lie.
MCGOVERN: Yes.
COOPER: I mean, there are those who say, well, look, there was -- well, not on the al Qaeda thing, but, on WMD, there were plenty of administrations in past and plenty of people in Congress and elsewhere in other intelligence services who believed there were WMD in Iraq.
MCGOVERN: Yes. The WMD issue is separate and distinct from this.
COOPER: Yes, of course.
MCGOVERN: The WMD thing was a matter of the vice president forcing the head of CIA to acquiesce in what the vice president wanted the administration to say.
Now, the vice president visited CIA headquarters 10 times. People ask me, is that unusual? I say, no, it's not unusual. That's unprecedented.
COOPER: How can you prove, though, a lie?
I mean, you're -- you're -- you're alleging an intent to mislead, a belief that they knew there were no WMD, that they knew Saddam wasn't really an imminent threat, and they chose to go to war anyway, and they -- they faked, they manipulated, they hand-picked intelligence.
Others will argue, you know, they -- maybe they -- you know, they believed they had it, and -- and so they looked for the intelligence that matched their belief, but -- but that they actually did believe it?
MCGOVERN: Thanks for that question, because we now have documentary proof that the president knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq well before the invasion.
We have the minutes of his discussions with Tony Blair, the British prime minister, on the 31st of January 2003, where the president says, there really -- really aren't any weapons of mass destruction to be found, but we need some way to make this war. Maybe -- yes, that's a good idea. Maybe we will paint one of our U-2s with U.N. colors and hope that it gets shot down, or maybe we will get a defector out that will attest to the presence of weapons of mass destruction. Or there's an outside chance we can just assassinate Saddam Hussein.
That's on the record. The British vouch for that. We also have the Downing Street memos, where the head of British intelligence came back from consultations with George Tenet in July of 2002 and said the intelligence and the facts are being fixed around the policy.
The evidence on ties between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, OK, that's what we're really talking about; 69 percent of the American people believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 when we went to war with Iraq. That was exactly what the administration wanted.
COOPER: As you look back on what happened today, I mean, this isn't like every day in your life, and were you nervous? I mean, when you stood up and started speaking back to the defense secretary, that's not an easy thing to do. There are a lot of reporters who haven't done that. Were you nervous?
MCGOVERN: Well, I spent almost five years briefing vice presidents, secretaries of defense, secretaries of state, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national security advisers.
So, in a way, I'm used to it. I guess I'm also Irish, and I get angry when people tell lies, especially when lots of people die because of those lies. So, I think the experience and the anger sort of superseded whatever nervousness I may have had. And I hope that my -- my remarks were articulate enough, so that people understood what I was trying to say.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, that was Ray McGovern, the man who confronted Secretary of Donald Rumsfeld today in a speech.
transcripts.cnn.com |
