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Rumsfeld proven a liar. Twice.

CFLarsen

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Protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday, and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence in an unusually vociferous display of anti-war sentiment.
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Ray McGovern: Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

Donald Rumsfeld: Well, first of all, I haven't lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didn't lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation I know he believed was accurate. And he presented that to the United Nations. The President spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I'm not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

Ray McGovern: You said you knew where they were.

Donald Rumsfeld: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were...

Ray McGovern: You said you knew where they were, near Tikrit, near Bagdad, and North, South, East and West of there. Those were your words.

Donald Rumsfeld: My words...my words were that....no, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, let him stay one second. (Waves to the security people) Just a second.

(Someone) This is America, huh?

Donald Rumsfeld: You're getting plenty of play, Sir.

Ray McGovern: I'd just like an honest answer.

Donald Rumsfeld: I'm giving it to you.

Ray McGovern: We're talking about lies, and your allegation that there was bullet-proof evidence of ties between Al-Queda and Iraq. Was that a lie, or were you misled?

Donald Rumsfeld: Zarqawi was in Bagdad during the pre-war period. That is a fact.

Ray McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the North of Iraq, in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule.

Donald Rumsfeld: He was also in Bagdad.

Ray McGovern: Yeah, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren't idiots, they know the story.

Donald 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? They honestly believed that there were chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons on his own people perviously, he'd used them on his neighbors, the Iranians, and they believed he had those weapons. We believed he had those weapons.

Ray McGovern: That's what we call a non sequitur, it doesn't matter what the troops believed, it matters what you believed.
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Donald Rumsfeld: We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit, and Bagdad, and East, West, South and North, somewhat.
March 30, 2003: ABC's "This Week".
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Oops.

(Woman) You said about a year ago, that there was bullet-proof evidence, that Saddam Hu...of links between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th attacks. When will the American public see that sort of evidence?

Donald Rumsfeld: I did not say that. And whoever said I said it, is wrong.
The National Press Club, September 10, 2003
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According to the New York Times, September he did say it, on September 27th, 2002. A month later, he admitted saying it.

Oops.
 
He didn't lie...not in the way you and I might understand that word...he didn't fully understand the question.
 
I can't believe someone made a thread about something that is as normal as sex.

Really, come on!!!!

Is anybody suprised that a politician would lie?
 
rhoadp said:
The best I can do:

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages/1761.html
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Not quite the "Bullet-proof evidence, that Saddam Hu...of links between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th attacks" as alleged in the OP quotes.

In fact:

Administration officials say there is still no evidence to link Mr. Hussein directly to the attacks on Sept. 11 in the United States. Some intelligence and law enforcement officials said today,
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Pauliesonne said:
I can't believe someone made a thread about something that is as normal as sex.

Really, come on!!!!

Is anybody suprised that a politician would lie?
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Just because politicians lie all the time, doesn't mean people should just accept it. The fact the people accept it as normal encourages them to do it.
 
CFLarsen said:
According to the New York Times, September he did say it, on September 27th, 2002. A month later, he admitted saying it.
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I'm going with Grammatron on this one. I've never seen or heard a quote from anyone in the administration claiming that Iraq had a hand in 9/11. Absent such a quote (preferably a whole transcript), I'm inclined to think that there was no such lie, and that either you've made a mistake in your recall of what the NYT said, or the NYT mislead you (my guess is the latter). Why? Because I've seen how badly the press screws up characterizations of what people say.
 
More info:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t10242002_t1024sd.html

Rumsfeld: There's one other thing I forgot to do, and that is to go to New York Times editorial comment, which said something about me using the word "bulletproof." And it's true, I did. What happened was, as I recall, I think I was here on probably the 26th of September, I think I was told, and in a press briefing I was asked about the linkage between al Qaeda and Iraq. And I took a piece of paper -- this one, as fate would have it -- which I had gotten from the Central Intelligence Agency -- and asked them -- which I'd asked them for -- and I believe I said that, that a number of us had said, "Give us the definitive word." And so I read off of it and said it was from the intelligence agency, I believe.

Then I was down the next day, I think, in Atlanta, and I was asked about this subject, and I said that the agency had come back to me with five or six sentences that were bulletproof. And it was the -- when I said the -- something was bulletproof, I was referring to the five or six sentences that I had read here off of a piece of paper which I'd received from the agency.

What we've done in the department has been to be very careful about, oh, having John McLaughlin, for example, or George Tenet do the briefing in Warsaw or do the briefings when people come into the building so that everyone is aware what the agreed community position is on intelligence. And I think it was The New York Times had an editorial that was querying about the word "bulletproof," and that's the -- that is what it had reference to.
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Grammatron said:
I can't seem to locate any such quote and since this is your thread/claim I wonder if you want to look into this as well.
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There are two video clips: One at the CNN.com Politics section (right now, it's the top link), and one in the article I linked to.
 
rhoadp said:
More info:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t10242002_t1024sd.html
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In other words, the woman questioning Rumsfeld was the one who was wrong (I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she just swallowed propaganda and didn't really know the truth). The "bulletproof" refered to links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, not between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. So Rumsfeld was right in his response to that woman, and she and CFLarsen are wrong.

BTW, if I were a Rumsfeld critic, I'd think twice about backing McGovern as your champion. He's a wingnut.
 
Ziggurat said:
I'm going with Grammatron on this one. I've never seen or heard a quote from anyone in the administration claiming that Iraq had a hand in 9/11. Absent such a quote (preferably a whole transcript), I'm inclined to think that there was no such lie, and that either you've made a mistake in your recall of what the NYT said, or the NYT mislead you (my guess is the latter). Why? Because I've seen how badly the press screws up characterizations of what people say.
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Yet, not only does he no longer deny it, he tries to defend it.

edit: oops, misread this one. Forget it.
 
Last edited:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that American intelligence had ''bulletproof'' evidence of links between Al Qaeda and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
New York Times
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There ya go.

Agree that Rumsfeld is a liar?
 
CFLarsen said:
There ya go.

Agree that Rumsfeld is a liar?
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Claim: (Woman) You said about a year ago, that there was bullet-proof evidence, that Saddam Hu...of links between Saddam Hussein and the September 11th attacks. When will the American public see that sort of evidence?


You have not shown evidence that Rumsfeld claimed to have link between Saddam and 9/11 only Saddam and Al Queda. That is not at all the same.
 
rhoadp said:
Yet, not only does he no longer deny it, he tries to defend it.
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I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. Rumsfeld is denying that he claimed any connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. And as far as I can tell that's true, he never did, the sources linked to here support that conclusion, the woman was wrong, and so is CFLarsen. It's a DIFFERENT question as to whether or not Iraq had any other ties to Al Qaeda, what exactly those connections were, what exactly Rumsfeld said about those connections, and what he knew about them. But that's not what that woman in CFLarsen's quote was talking about - she rather specifically said the 9/11 attacks, and Rumsfeld's response to her looks to me like he's taking the same position on that topic that the administration has taken all along.
 
To be clear, from what I can tell:

Rumsfeld "bulletproof" comment was about links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, not 9/11 and Iraq.

McGovern did not claim that Rumsfeld made this comment about 9/11-Iraq.

Unnamed lady at the bottom of the OP did, which Rumsfeld did deny, and I have not seen that denial retracted.

Rumsfeld does defend the Al Qaeda-Iraq link.

Yes?
 
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