Rumsfeld

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 Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history—revisionist historians is what I like to call them."
~Halfwit McFlightsuit {June 16, 2003}

*** See below this article for some choice quotes from Rummy The Dummy.  --- Kevin

 

Rumsfeld says he did not 'advocate' invading Iraq  My Note: He advocated torture!

Nov 20, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asserted that he did not press for the US-led invasion of Iraq, as public disaffection for the US military operation there reaches new highs.

"I didn't advocate invasion," Rumsfeld told ABC television Sunday, when asked if he would have advocated an invasion of Iraq if he had known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found there.

The US Defense chief added: "I wasn't asked," when asked whether he supported the March 2003 invasion.

Asked on ABC television's "This Week" program if he was trying to distance himself after the fact from the controversial US decision to invade Iraq, Rumsfeld replied: "Of course not. Of course not. I completely agreed with the decision to go to war and said that a hundred times. Don't even suggest that."

But Rumsfeld's insistence that he had not advocated an invasion of Iraq appears to contradict several media reports, and at least one book by a former White House couter-terrorism chief.

CBS News has reported, citing notes by Pentagon officials, that Rumsfeld told his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

The notes, cited by CBS, quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein)".

Former White House terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, said in his book "Against all Enemies" that days after the September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, despite questions over Iraq's links to Al-Qaeda.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke has said in describing White House deliberations after the September 11 attacks.

In speeches prior to the 2003 invasion, Rumsfeld had said Iraq was a danger that could not be ignored and that diplomacy and sanctions had been unsuccessful against Saddam Hussein's regime.

"Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people," Rumsfeld said in a January 2003 speech, adding "in the case of Iraq we are nearing the end of the long road, and with every other option exhausted".

 

See some of Rummy's quotes leading up to the invasion of Iraq:

 

RUMSFELD

Iraq's weapons of mass terror and the terror networks to which the Iraqi regime are linked are not two separate themes -- not two separate threats. They are part of the same threat.

-- Speech to Council on Foreign Relations, Jan. 23, 2003

Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

From Daniel Kurtzman,Your Guide to Political Humor.

Memorable Quotes by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist."

"Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."

"Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning."

"Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often."

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"I don't do quagmires."

"I don't do diplomacy."

"I don't do foreign policy."

"I don't do predictions."

"I don't do numbers."

"I don't do book reviews."

"Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."