Rumsfeld proven a liar. Twice.

Ziggurat said:
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.
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Yes, I got confused. Post #20 was an attempt to make things clear. Hopefully we can progress from there.
 
rhoadp said:
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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This is accurate, yes.
 
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.
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Because YOU, The Secretary of Defense, told them the Iraqis had chemical weapons!

Yeesh!
 
From the NYTimes article:

Mr. Rumsfeld explained today that he had met with his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and other top aides about a week ago, to figure out a way to declassify some of the information about Iraq-Al Qaeda links. He said intelligence analysts came back with "five or six sentences" that were "bulletproof" and could be cited in briefings with allies, lawmakers and the public.

"But they‘re not photographs," Mr. Rumsfeld said today. "They‘re not beyond a reasonable doubt. They, in some cases, are assessments from limited number of sources."
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I would like to know what these "bulletproof" statements are. I would also like to know how bulletproof = "not beyond a reasonable doubt".
 
rhoadp said:
Rumsfeld "bulletproof" comment was about links between Al Qaeda and Iraq, not 9/11 and Iraq.
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So, Rummy is saying that there is no link between Al Qaeda and 9/11?

rhoadp said:
McGovern did not claim that Rumsfeld made this comment about 9/11-Iraq.
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Nobody said so. McGovern's issue is with the WMD.

rhoadp said:
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.
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No, he doesn't. Well, not anymore. The issue is, he denies he ever had "bulletproof" evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.
 
rhoadp said:
Evidence of said wingnuttery would be helpful. Thanks.
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It came up recently in another thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1619855#post1619855
Here's a shortened version of what I said in that thread.
McGovern gave an interview in Feb. 2004, where he talks about Tenet, Bush, 9/11, and the Iraq war:
http://www.nathancallahan.com/mcgovern.html
He made some wrong predictions about Tenet, based in part on what he thought was Tenet's ability to blackmail Bush with a smoking gun in the form of the infamous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing. That PDB was released a few months later, and while it may not look that great for Bush, it sure as hell isn't the smoking gun that McGovern thought it would be. According to Tricky, McGovern said in a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper that there are memos which prove Bush knew there were no WMD's in Iraq. I doubt McGovern has even seen whatever memos he's refering to, and is probably just as mistaken about whatever their content is. So he's not exactly a reliable source about what's really going on.

But from a strategic standpoint, the problem with backing McGovern goes even deeper. McGovern also thinks that the war in Iraq was waged for the benefit of Israel, by people in the administration who are more loyal to Israel than to the US. He's also rabidly partisan, referring to neocons as fascists, and comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag fire under Hitler. He's basically fallen into the cliche of what an ultra-leftist anti-war protester should be (compare Bush to Hitler, blame it on the Jews, rant about conspiracy theories, etc) - even if any of his criticisms turn out to be valid, he's exactly the sort of person you DON'T want making your case for you, because a lot of people are going to discount him because he's a wingnut. And you don't even need him to make any case against Bush OR Rumsfeld, because frankly, there is NO new information he's actually bringing to the table. All he represents is argument from authority (the press loves to trot out how he was in the CIA for 27 years, etc), but that won't hold up long under scrutiny. Don't back the loon just because he's the enemy of your enemy. That didn't work out for the anti-war crowd with Cindy Sheehan, and it won't work with McGovern.
 
Grammatron said:
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.
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Excuse me? Just who the hell is he fighting a war against terror against?
 
CFLarsen said:
So, Rummy is saying that there is no link between Al Qaeda and 9/11?
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How desperate are you to avoid admitting you were wrong? That's like saying I have links to Kevin Bacon because I can play that "Six Degrees" game. Al Qaeda was engaged in a lot of activity, only ONE of which was the 9/11 attacks. If someone says that Iraq was linked to the 9/11 attacks, it doens't mean in a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" sort of way - it means that they actually helped out with that specific operation. THAT is what EVERYONE understands that claim to mean, unless they're being dishonest, as you now appear to be. The administration has never claimed any such link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.
 
Ziggurat said:
It came up recently in another thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1619855#post1619855
Here's a shortened version of what I said in that thread.
McGovern gave an interview in Feb. 2004, where he talks about Tenet, Bush, 9/11, and the Iraq war:
http://www.nathancallahan.com/mcgovern.html
He made some wrong predictions about Tenet, based in part on what he thought was Tenet's ability to blackmail Bush with a smoking gun in the form of the infamous August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing. That PDB was released a few months later, and while it may not look that great for Bush, it sure as hell isn't the smoking gun that McGovern thought it would be. According to Tricky, McGovern said in a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper that there are memos which prove Bush knew there were no WMD's in Iraq. I doubt McGovern has even seen whatever memos he's refering to, and is probably just as mistaken about whatever their content is. So he's not exactly a reliable source about what's really going on.

But from a strategic standpoint, the problem with backing McGovern goes even deeper. McGovern also thinks that the war in Iraq was waged for the benefit of Israel, by people in the administration who are more loyal to Israel than to the US. He's also rabidly partisan, referring to neocons as fascists, and comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag fire under Hitler. He's basically fallen into the cliche of what an ultra-leftist anti-war protester should be (compare Bush to Hitler, blame it on the Jews, rant about conspiracy theories, etc) - even if any of his criticisms turn out to be valid, he's exactly the sort of person you DON'T want making your case for you, because a lot of people are going to discount him because he's a wingnut. And you don't even need him to make any case against Bush OR Rumsfeld, because frankly, there is NO new information he's actually bringing to the table. All he represents is argument from authority (the press loves to trot out how he was in the CIA for 27 years, etc), but that won't hold up long under scrutiny. Don't back the loon just because he's the enemy of your enemy. That didn't work out for the anti-war crowd with Cindy Sheehan, and it won't work with McGovern.
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None of this makes the questions he asked Rumsfeld any less valid.
The Bushies propaganda machine attempts to make all of their critics out to be wingnuts.
 
Ziggurat said:
How desperate are you to avoid admitting you were wrong? That's like saying I have links to Kevin Bacon because I can play that "Six Degrees" game. Al Qaeda was engaged in a lot of activity, only ONE of which was the 9/11 attacks. If someone says that Iraq was linked to the 9/11 attacks, it doens't mean in a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" sort of way - it means that they actually helped out with that specific operation. THAT is what EVERYONE understands that claim to mean, unless they're being dishonest, as you now appear to be.

The administration has never claimed any such link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.
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I didn't ask about Iraq. I asked about Al Qaeda and 9/11.
 
The Bush administration has labeled bin Laden's Al Qaeda network as the prime suspect in the September 11th attacks.
Source
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Next, it will be argued that Osama bin Laden is not really Al Qaeda.... :rolleyes:
 
Grammatron said:
You sure have, also you dodged the facts that prove your statement wrong.
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So far, I have been the only one presenting evidence after evidence.

You have simply said "Uh-huh, doesn't exist, it's not real, you are wrong".
 
Evolver said:
None of this makes the questions he asked Rumsfeld any less valid.
The Bushies propaganda machine attempts to make all of their critics out to be wingnuts.
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Are you calling me part of the Bush propaganda machine? I did some searching on McGovern, came up with that transcript, and came to the conclusion that he's a whackjob rather on my own - no orders from Rove or anything. If I'm part of the Bush propaganda machine, I'm getting paid awfully poorly for my services. So from where I'm sitting, it's not about making all of Bush's critics into wingnuts (not all of them are), it's about McGovern actually BEING a whackjob.

As for the questions McGovern asked Rumsfeld, sure, his loony status alone doesn't disqualify the questions themselves. That wasn't quite my point, though: basically everything he asked has been asked before by plenty of other people, there's nothing new involved here. The only reason this is a story is because the press thinks McGovern's identity makes it a story, and I'm saying that's a dangerous path for Rumsfeld critics to follow. Go ahead and keep on asking whatever questions you like of Bush and the rest of the administration. But using McGovern as the tool to do it is going to backfire, because he IS a loon.
 
CFLarsen said:
So far, I have been the only one presenting evidence after evidence.

You have simply said "Uh-huh, doesn't exist, it's not real, you are wrong".
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Post #9 was in response to the claim in you post(#1).

Not evidence enough for you?
 
CFLarsen said:
So far, I have been the only one presenting evidence after evidence.

You have simply said "Uh-huh, doesn't exist, it's not real, you are wrong".
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Claus, it may help if you stop using terms you don't understand in your thread titles, such as the term "proven." It rather undercuts your credibility when you don't bother to actually prove anything. ;)
 
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