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Rumsfeld Lies About Iraq and the War on Terror ... Again
ABC News reports today on Diane Sawyer's recent interview with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld claims:
Powell
-- along with other top Bush administration officials and advisers --
truly believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at the time of
his famous presentation to the United Nations in February 2003.
The truth, however, is that everyone knew that Iraq didn't have WMDs.
ABC also notes:
Asked if he turned the conversation inside the administration to Iraq in the wake of 9/11, Rumsfeld said "absolutely not."
But as I have repeatedly pointed out, the reality is that Rumsfeld tried to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to attack Iraq:
5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".
He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is currently saying that Dick Cheney's vision of policy towards the Middle East after 9/11 was to re-draw the map ....
***
What does this mean?
Well,
as I have repeatedly pointed out, the "war on terror" in the Middle
East has nothing to do with combating terror, and everything to do with
remaking that region's geopolitical situation to America's advantage.
For example, as I noted in January::
Starting
right after 9/11 -- at the latest -- the goal has always been to
create "regime change" and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya,
Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon; the goal was never really to destroy Al
Qaeda. As American reporter Gareth Porter writes in Asia Times:Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US
defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military
objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but
overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other
countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted
extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas
Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.
Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of
remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat
of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military
leaders.Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling
for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a
series of states...***
General
Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and
deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down
included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon].***
When this writer asked Feith . . . which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, "All of them."
***
The
Defense Department guidance document made it clear that US military
aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to
terrorism. The document said the Defense Department would also seek to
isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage or destroy"
their military capacities - not necessarily limited to weapons of mass
destruction (WMD)...Rumsfeld's paper was
given to the White House only two weeks after Bush had approved a US
military operation in Afghanistan directed against bin Laden and the
Taliban regime. Despite that decision, Rumsfeld's proposal called
explicitly for postponing indefinitely US airstrikes and the use of
ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in order
to try to catch bin Laden.Instead, the
Rumsfeld paper argued that the US should target states that had
supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas.***
After
the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa [in 1998] by al-Qaeda
operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael
Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan against bin Laden's sponsor, the Taliban regime. However,
senior US military leaders "refused to consider it", according to a
2004 account by Richard H Shultz, Junior, a military specialist at
Tufts University.A senior officer on the
Joint Staff told State Department
counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a "small price to pay for being a superpower".No wonder former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative".
***
The number two man at the State Department, Lawrence Wilkerson, said:
The vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy.
***
And
at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions
between top administration officials, several lines below the
statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam
Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case."
In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that
Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as
an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.
Moreover, "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President
Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S.
intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of
Saddam Hussein to the [9/11] attacks and that there was scant credible
evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al
Qaeda".And a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy.
And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed repeatedly for years that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed, Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11.
Moreover, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph:
(2)
acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is
consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take
the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist
organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons
who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001.Therefore, the
Bush administration expressly justified the Iraq war to Congress by
representing that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11
attacks. See this.Indeed, the torture program which Cheney created was specifically aimed at producing false confessions in an attempt to link Iraq and 9/11.
Rumsfeld had a big hand in torture as well.
- advertisements -
Never trust a Dick that helped us lose 'Nam.
In other news, it sounds like President Clinton has denied he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, who is evidently a White House intern. Quick, someone do some investigation and write an article to debunk this claim and get this timely story on the front page of an up-to-the-minute finance blog!
Funny brandy, for some reason your comment made me think of this pic
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rickyseabra.com/images%2520IN%2520FOLDERS/BLOGS/blowjob.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rickyseabra.com/blog2006.html&usg=__tvNRt8Dns954qAg46OZituejNe4=&h=426&w=294&sz=36&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=hzvghllJVhlp7M:&tbnh=112&tbnw=77&ei=dctQTersHs2_tgeDyb2ACw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsomebody%2Bsleep%2Bwith%2Bbush%2Bso%2Bwe%2Bcan%2Bimpeach%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7ACAW_enCA394CA396%26biw%3D1058%26bih%3D493%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=749&oei=dctQTersHs2_tgeDyb2ACw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=35&ty=50
War is bad for the economy.
We were lied into war.
The lies are continuing. See this and this.
Essays which discredit the ONGOING lies may have some chance of helping the economy, and thus our individual investments.
Indeed, up-to-the-minute finance blog will be a LOT more useful if we actually have FREE MARKETS. But the state of emergency we've been living under for the past 10 years has interfered with the free markets.
Q.E.D.
George, you sound like you are "talking your book". I think everyone realizes you want to sell financial advisory services to labor pension funds and certain "old money". They aren't interested in getting every last point of return. You understand you need to promote their political line.
I would have more respect for your opinion if you actually swung for the fences instead of resurrecting old battles.
All you need to know about Rumsfeld was captured in the Pat Tillman movie.
We all get it, the article title would have been sufficient and explanatory at "Donald Rumsfeld lies"
Yah, quit bringing this stuff up willya? It's, like, sooooooo 2008....
</sarc>
GW and most of the rest of you - stick to finance. You guys are clueless. GW, more tripe, just what I would expect.
You're like a broken record, GW, only far less entertaining.
Same shit - another day with these Libs. They never say an unkind word about their hero Obama Mugabe and his minions Bernake and Geithner who is destroying the country. Geithner's old man worked with Obama's mum at the Ford Foundation aka CIA.
Man, you don't get it... Obama is a carbon copy of Bush... just a bit blacker. I find it unbelievable that people who frequent this site still buy the demo/repub bullshit.
Do some reading on the Blues and the Greens in the Byzantine Empire. It's the same bullshit.
I'm sure he thinks General Sada is a CIA plant.
Writers keep referring to the 911 "terrorist attacks".
What, precisely are they referring to?
Where, precisely, are these mythical terrorists?
What is a terrorist? Has anyone actually seen a "terrorist"? Ever?
Or is the writer referring to the Coup D'Etat that took place with the MIC demolition of the WTC buildings in NY? (Larry Silverstein's telling recollection of his conversation with the NYFD telling them to "pull it" a term used solely in DEMOLITION?!
I believe we saw terrorist cut off reporter Daniel Pearl's head. Does that fit the definition?
Yeah, right. “Everyone knows” that the only real “terrorists” are veterans, members of the Tea Party, and Ron Paul supporters -- Obama’s DHS (Department of Hate Spewers) said so:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/1053
Some more haters:
Frank Rich (New York Times) compared the Tea Party movement to Krystallnacht.
Paul Krugman made a similar allusion regarding opposition to Obamacare. (“…the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P.”)
Harry Reid equated those who oppose a government takeover of healthcare to advocates of slavery.
Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, fanatics and Aryan groups…
Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia compared Republicans to Nazis on the Senate floor.
Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee: "All those who wore sheets a long time ago have now lifted them off and started wearing clothing with a name, say, I am part of the tea party."
James Clyburn (D-S.C.) accused Republicans of “aiding and abetting … terrorism.”
D.C. Congressman Steve Cohen, Democrat from Tennessee, became completely unhinged on the House Floor and said that Republicans were acting like Nazis in their opposition to Obamacare.
Also from Cohen: “Tea party people are kind of like without robes and hoods, they have really shown a very hardcore, angry side of America that is against any type of diversity. And we saw opposition to African-Americans, hostility toward gays, hostility to anybody who wasn't just, you know, a clone of George Wallace's fan club.”
Ex-Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson (in referring to the Americans who attended the Glen Beck Washington rally): "These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago."
Janeane Garofalo (some washed up old bag who claims to be a comedian) says tea parties are all about White Power.
Too many more to list…
Thanks for providing an exemplar for how Americans are so easily divided and subsequently subdued.
Left vs right, Socialism vs Right wing loonyism, shouldn't even be on your radar. Face it, when it comes to mainstreet vs wallstreet Ralph Nader has more in common with Ron Paul than the Republicrats have with the Demoblicans; my my, that is saying something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwIZ4syCFLc
<please make allowances for the dipshittiness of the interviewer>
You really, really, NEED to stop making it so fucking easy to derail what should be an unwavering desire for unity if there is ever going to be any hope at getting the country back from the plutocrats within the next ten generations... shit, it's probably already too late you pig-headed 'all or nothing', let's 'throw the baby out with the bathwater', 'I'll fight you for/against gay marriage' rubes.
Regards
Generals always opt for war - get to play with new toys, gets them away from the wife and kids and most importantly, they get some new pu-tang. [Observations from my Vietnam episode].
GW tortures me with every article he posts...
Cheney and Rumsfeld played the global game of Risk to win, and unlike earlier players, the facade of moral ascendency could not be called upon the shield their crimes. I despise them both, but I wouldn't want to be at the same table playing the game.
"Rumsfeld had a big hand in torture as well."
damned right he did along with asshole cheney both of whom gleefully congratulated themselves on the torture which goes on to this day as part of usa policy....
rumsfeld is total and complete psychopathic murdering liar....if he sounds like satan it is no accident.
I have more respect for Satan...at least he has a purpose for the damage induced.
Rummy's agenda had a purpose.
Instead, the Rumsfeld paper argued that the US should target states that had supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Serving Israel, but 90% of the clowns on ZH want to ignore this.
GW,
Amazing - you are concerned about lying when you have repeatedly LIED about OBL's role in 9/11. That is the ULTIMATE lie. You $hit upon the graves of American dead and than have the nerve to have call others out.
GW is a POS. ZH is a good site. Tyler should be careful because it is becoming Huffington Post with trash from GW.
Haha government shill boi... You'd think they'd (the gov't) would train their psyops better. You think we are stupid? You think that we do not understand physics?
I will say this as politely as I can...
Go fuck yourself you traitorous motherfucking slimy puss ridden cum bubble.
Have a nice day fascist scumbag.
Elaborate please.
http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html
Surely a believer that:
- Mossad
or
- The American MIC
or
- Lady Gaga
...was truly responsible for 9/11
so you believe Stan did it?
even he doesnt have the ability to have our air defence stand down....
i named my dog 911
911 is an inside dog
Follow the oil...
Too easy. Follow the billions of DoD no-bid contract money.
Stan worships Rumsfeld.
Dark Lord Stan, to his friends.
If the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative", then why have we allowed the fascist takeover of the Bill of Rights due to our fear of the jihadist strawman? Go ahead, sheeple, rat out your neighbors; Big Sis will let you cut in on the food line at the FEMA camp.
Ask Darrell Issa and Michael Chertoff's accountants.
If you would like to check out some people who aren't just pussies posing as tough guys on ZH take a look at the latest post from Chechnya on http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/ This is whole country full of Tim McVeighs.
I have always had a lot of respect for chechens. The second battle of Grozny was amazing. The pictures of chechens hardly older than boys digging in so up close and personal that airpower was useless (and the russians had to negotiate their way out or face a slow grinding massacre) should be an inspiration for all freedom loving people. Russia still has a few conquered territories they need to give up. They are still an empire.
Run, Pooty Poot, Run!
The War of Fabricated Lies and Special Interest.
Sadly, thousands of US citizens are dead and tens of thousands injured at the hand of this traitor.
Hell has a special place for Donald Rumsfeld, whose sole participation was based on war as a profit-enterprise.
You all forgot about Dean Rusk. That bloodthirsty bastard should have been shot and hung upside down in public.
Being responsible for NutraSweet entering the market is far, far worse then any war he involved the world in.
BTW: I was doing intel work at the time for the NSA. Its just not true to say that no one thought that Iraq had WMDs.
Everyone though he had them.
Saddam had to project constant WMD power in the ME theater to keep Iran at bay, to keep the Sunni's and Shia's in line, and to keep his pecker up at night. In the end, that was his failing.
The bottom line is that most of the world though that he had 'em - anyone who didn't just made a lucky guess. Most people make the mistake of thinking nukes and nukes alone when thinking WMD, and that is untrue as well. What did Iraq use to kill all those Kurds? Liberal good intentions? Granted, Good Intentions kill far more people, but poison gas will snuff a kurd just as well.
I will bet good money there is a ton of WMD rotting away somewhere in the Bekáa Valley - or at least there use to be.
Saddam had them. GW here is an Obama shill. This is supposed to be a site to discuss finance and corruption. Oddly these little lib Democrats here never have an unkind word for Obama who is bankrupting America. They are turning ZH into Huff Po.
Turning Huff Post? That's an understatement. Liberal fascists in America have been running the media for the last 30 years.
I couldn't give a shit about whether there were WMDs or not. Bush lazily allowed the fascists in the media to paint him into a corner on the issue and make it the determinative factor. Fuck that. I'm glad Saddam is gone and I wish a lot more assholes like him would be hung by their own citizens.
The WMD is that 99% of you are a bunch of chicken shit ass wipes born with the perverse mentality that began in the deranged 1960s and continues today with wussberger syndromes. There is nothing good about your feminist pleasing talk, dress or choice of passtimes. Most of you probably ride bikes and think it's a sport. There you go. The generation of 60's pukes and their offspring that do sports sitting down and do their thinking from textbooks written by academic morons
@ Freddie needs to get fingered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTeEQuaNz2g
GW regularly criticises the current administration.
What an ignorant, shrill, partisan plank you are.
Biology/Chemistry anything has a pretty short shelf-life. This would include biological WMDs. I remember reading something by a respected biochemist at the time leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The article stated that Sadam would know that hiding the WMDs for later use would be of limited benefit, since their effectiveness would deteriorate fairly quickly. His real assets were the people who knew how to make the biological WMDs. So far as I know, those folks have not been eliminated.
perhaps you are correct about short shelf life for bio weapons richard, however nerve gas is a completely different story
we have a huge amount of it ourselves that we would like to get rid of because it is literally leaking from its storage tanks here in the US
it must be burned to be destroyed at extremely high temps....i could refer you to my fathers book on the subject but it was classified shortly after publication
even he cant get a copy
JQ:
You are half right. US/NATO chem weapons were formulated in the "binary" form, where they only became agents when mixed (like epoxy). otoh, Saddam's technology was the "unary" form, half-life in the seven-to-ten days range.
Dugway and Aberdeen are processing VX into Poland Springs as we speak. But it is slow.
- Ned
You are correct, Rihab Taha (who worked in a chicken feed factory outside Baghdad that was surrounded by anti-aircraft batteries...LOL) & Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash were released with prejudice.
They are known to us as Dr. Germ & Chemical Sally respectively.
Doc Germ got her PHD from the University of East Anglia...yes, that East Anglia. Some of Sally's training was done here...on a visa...INS screwed up on Atta's visa. The others were here on visa's as well...business, tourist or student.
The only "conspiracy" regarding 911 is gross government incompetence yet again. The statists are going to have to come to grips with that first as they rail against the Patriot Act second...which I also disagree with (the Patriot Act).
Fin.