Seemingly lost in the shuffle of the emerging revelations about Haditha and the surging violence in Iraq, was Donald Rumsfeld’s recent appearance on Larry King Live. And that’s a shame because the interview is a goldmine of the wisdom and deep thoughts of our Secretary of Defense. For example, does he ever have any doubts or regrets about Iraq?
No.
Or, what did he learn from the criticisms of six retired Generals?
Well, I guess one thing that’s pretty clear, and that — well, one of them’s running for president. One of them’s writing a book and selling a book. You know, I mean, you learn about human nature, I suppose.
There are also his thoughts on progress in Iraq, troop levels, elections, how hard it is to write condolence letters and American Idol. And when asked about accusations that he had lied in the past about WMD? He lied. Again.
As many here will recall, on May 4th, retired CIA officer Ray McGovern publicly challenged Rumsfeld on his pre-war statements about WMD. When King questioned him about the accusation, Rumsfeld said of McGovern:
He’s an activist. He goes around and does this everywhere. He was here recently at the White House. He testified for, I believe, for impeaching President Bush and that type of thing. So that’s what he does.
And then he lied:
He’s wrong. The intelligence community had suspect sites where they believed the locations were most likely. We had — our troops had gone in from Kuwait north towards — into Iraq, north towards Baghdad. They’d been in there a day or two or three, I believe, when I was asked, “Why haven’t you found the weapons of mass destruction?” And I said, “Because they’ve just gotten in the southern part of the country, and we know” — I said something to that effect — “that the suspect sites” — or sites, meaning suspect sites — “were in the area of Baghdad and north, that’s where the intelligence community said them, and that we weren’t there yet. We hadn’t covered that piece of real estate.”
Wrong. Here’s what Rumsfeld said on March 30, 2003:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet…And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think — let me take that, both pieces — the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
“We know where they are,” a lie, is now, “I said “that the suspect sites…,” another lie. But why worry about the facts? After all, the 27 year veteran of the CIA was an
activist…Rumsfeld said so. So what was King’s hard hitting follow-up to this boldface lie?
MR. KING: You didn’t lose sleep over that.
SEC. RUMSFELD: No. Oh, my gosh.
MR. KING: Okay. We’re going to deploy National Guard troops on the border. Do you support that?
The lesson to be learned from the interview is this; if you can’t do your interview on FOX, Larry King is a darn good second choice.
Another highlight from the interview was when King asked him about attending funerals for the fallen and the difficulty of writing condolence letters to the family. Rumsfeld was asked what it was like to meet with the families:
SEC. RUMSFELD: It’s — I guess my meetings with them are forward- looking. […]
And I have found that I benefit from doing it.
Well that alone makes the 2471 casualties in this war all worthwhile.
And the question that keeps me up at night:
MR. KING: How do you deal with it, Mr. Secretary, emotionally?
He reads a lot of history, and then:
MR. KING: But you still have to write the letter, don’t you?
SEC. RUMSFELD: You bet. You bet.
MR. KING: I mean that’s a human being.
SEC. RUMSFELD: And I just signed three letters right in there, before I came in here, to the families of people who have been killed.
Wow, three whole signatures…that must have been tough on the poor guy. Especially when you consider that since the public furor over his using a signing machine, Rumsfeld has to sign each and every one of those letters…by hand. The humanity!
What else? There’s progress in Iraq, they’ve elected a unity government, troop levels are fine, Dick Cheney lives to serve his country, war is Hell and Rumsfeld used the expression “oh my goodness” or “oh my gosh” at least ten times. Oh, and another thing about that criticism of him? George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were criticized too.
And he lied.
