Rumsfeld vs. Rumsfeld (I Can't Stand It! Department)

I'll stop calling the Bush administration Orwellian when they stop using 1984 as an operations manual:

ThinkProgress:

RUMSFELD: "We know for a fact, I know for a fact that no one in the Administration lied about weapons of mass destruction." -- Fox News Radio, 6/21/05

VERSUS

RUMSFELD: We know where they [Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction] are. The're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. -- ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, 3/30/03

Comments

[Tom Cecere]

To paraphrase a famous man, "it all depends on what your definition of 'lied' is"...

[Steady Eddie]

And as we all know, lying about sex is ever so much more subversive of democratic government than lying about the purported pretext for war and corporate war profiteering-cum-looting.

[kharris]

You remember. There are things you know, things you don't know, things you don't know you don't know, things you don't remember whether you know, things you don't remember where you put... All along, he was really just building a case that "knowing where the weapons are" is entirely unfalsifiable.

[Kuas]

Rumsfeld obviously was referring to Saddam's intent to revive his WMD programs at some future date. Now, how they were able to ascertain the exact location of Saddam's intentions is an interesting philisophical mystery.

[Panochia]

I was given to understand, that a large map of Iraq was laid on the floor, and and a certified diviner walked over it with a divining rod, tuned to WMD.

[Ottnott]

It was sort of like that, Panochia.

The part about the large map of Iraq is accurate, but the Bush admin didn't use a divining rod.

The admin wrote a $50 million check. A Pentagon lackey stood next to the map, facing outward. He dropped the check over his shoulder onto the map. Ahmed Chalabi picked up the check, marked an X where the check had landed, and said: "I can state with certainty that the WMDs will be found in this region".

[Kosh]

Wolfowitz: Stockpiles is your word.

http://www.catch.com/comments/39090_0_17_0_C/

[dogfacegeorge]

T,
I admit: I'm stupid. Now, with your greater wisdom, perhaps you can help me -- How did Rumsfeld make a mistake about what he himself knew?

[s9]

Careful there Professor... memory is, as we must all now conceded, terrorism.

If you insist on remembering things that must be officially forgotten, it will do nothing but serve as a demonstration your true motivations: to put American troops in greater danger.

[a]

If Rumsfeld had a precise spot where he believed the WMDs were concealed then he would have directed UNSCOM to it. We knew this when he made the earlier statement, so we all understood that he didn't have a precise place in mind. He said, and we understood that he had information indicating that the weapons were concealed in a particular area.

Everybody understands all the above, only they pretend not to. It's just a little partisan game and it gets a bit tiresome.

[dogfacegeorge]

According to the famous Rumsfeld dicta, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. His statement about WMD was asserting something entirely new and different - an unknown known.

In other words, Rumsfeld may know that something is true even when it isn't.

Forget Orwell - think Lewis Carroll.

[dogfacegeorge]

A,

Let me see if I get this straight. Rumsfeld MEANT to say was that he had "information" that Saddam had concealed WMD. But then, the source of that information would be in question, would it not? Was the source, for example, a duplicitous expatriate?

No, A, the importance of what Rumsfeld was saying was that he, Rumsfeld, was the source whose credibility could be judged. He, Rumsfeld, KNEW - not believed, but KNEW - of the existence of WMD's.

But he didn't know. And, of course, he knew that he didn't know. Thus, he was lying when he said he knew. But many people believed his lie. Many people could not imagine that a U.S. Secretary of Defense could possibly lie about such an important matter.

[dogfacegeorge]

Let me put it in even blunter terms. A, would you have sent your son or daughter to a possible bloody death in Iraq based on the word of a criminal embezzler like Chalabi? If that was the source for Rumsfeld's claim, shouldn't he have told us that, instead of telling us that he "knew" something that he did not know?

[gcochran]

Well, it might just be that Rumsfeld and his entire crew are morons instead of liars. As for the general claim, that Iraq was some kind of military threat: I've worked in defense for many years and have lots of friends in the business. Of those I know who had voted for Bush, few believed in the claims about the Iraqi Peril.

Running through the Cal Tech graduates on my list, none believed.

Sad to say, nobody in politics or punditry (with maybe one exception) even _knows_ anyone with a real knowledge of military technology, or thought to ask.

[obscure]

It's not a partisan game, a.

Unless you consider "partisan game" to mean the totality of what Bushco stands for.

How is your river in Egypt?

[ed_finnerty]

I read tacitus before the war - they all knew it was at least "sexed up" but they thought the end of removing saddam justified the means. Also, I always thought that "north/south/east/west somewhat" quote of Rummies was the most obvious indicator that he was just making shit up. They are either somewhere or somewhat - they are not both.

[Matt]

ed's right, that the "north, south, east, west" thing is just too rich. When I first heard it, it reminded me of an interview w/ Rumsfeld carried on NPR some time after we'd failed to capture Bin Laden. He said that we had a very good idea where he was- he was either in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or some other country. We had, apparently, conclusively ruled out that he was hiding on a submarine, the dark side of the moon, the north pole, or the astroids beyond the orbit of pluto.

[Movie Guy]

Ahem... I thought that those in the know within DoD understood that any remaining major weapons (WMD) were already in Syria by 3/30/03.

Perhaps Rumsfeld and others should go back and check the satellite feeds. Or just remain quiet.

Quiet might be better.

[NA]

Didn't Rumsfeld once bring a rendition of a Bin Laden hide-out on 'Meet The Press'? And didn't this very professional looking graphic showed a very complex and costly campus (supposedly built inside a mountain!) with electricity, man-made air shafts and all kinds of modern amenities. Never did find that place did we?

Seems easy for a reasonable person to come to the conclusion that this man is a serial liar, and that he fits in perfectly with the rest of the administration.

[A-ro]

Brad,

Your post is strong evidence of our defense and intelligence establishment's incompetence. To show that Rumsfeld lied, you have to have evidence that he knew what he said on 3/30/03 on This Week was false (this is similar to what gcochran said above, that they might have been morons instead of liars).

You did not present such evidence.

We have very, very good reason to be suspicious of all of the administration's pre-war statements. But to hold up these statements by Rumsfeld as "proof" that he lied is over-reaching. I know it's not as cool and snarky and blog-y to be careful and wait until we have slam-dunk evidence (of the real, not the George Tenent kind) before calling someone a liar, but the credibility and the cause of grown-up democrats (like yourself) will be better served in the long run by saving outright accusations for when we can back them up.

[Buckley]

I'm no fan of Rumsfeld, and I was opposed to war from the beginning, but isn't it possible he was just wrong and not lying. I say things that are factually incorrect on a pretty regular basis, but the reason is ignorance not mendacity.

[dogfacegeorge]

Rumsfeld told us that WMD existed in Iraq. And he was wrong. But being wrong is not tantamount to lying.

But he told us something more. He told us that he KNEW that WMD existed in Iraq. And he obviously did not know. BUT WE ALL KNOW WHAT WE KNOW. Thus, when Rumsfeld asserted that he KNEW that WMD existed in Iraq, he was telling us something about the state of his knowledge that he knew to be false. In short, he was lying.

[lise]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24krugman.html

The War President
By PAUL KRUGMAN

VIENNA

In this former imperial capital, every square seems to contain a giant statue of a Habsburg on horseback, posing as a conquering hero.

America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.

But after 9/11 President Bush, with obvious relish, declared himself a "war president." And he kept the nation focused on martial matters by morphing the pursuit of Al Qaeda into a war against Saddam Hussein.

In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.

Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that....

[howard]

Buckley, what Rumsfeld and all the other honorable men (and women) around bush did was to remove every caveat, every hedge, and every buyer beward. They asserted likelihoods as certainties, and expanded the scope of those likelihoods well beyond reason.

this isn't just a mistake. people who are trying hard to be honest don't do that sort of thing.

people who are trying to sell the american public on a dubious war: they do that sort of thing.

[Bruce Webb]

"If Rumsfeld had a precise spot where he believed the WMDs were concealed then he would have directed UNSCOM to it."

This assumes a lot of good faith on the part of Rumsfield. The Downing Street memos clearly showed that the British expected Saddam to refuse to admit the Inspectors, which in turn would give them the legal justification for war. Saddam caught both the US and Britain flat-footed when he not only admitted Inspectors but gave them unprecedented access to "Presidential Sites". And when they started coming up with dry hole after dry hole the panic emanating from Washington became palpable, their chance to get their war was was shrinking by the day.

I fully believe that the PNAC boys expected Chalabi to turn up enough weapons to give them cover, their worst fear was that UNSCOM would show those weapons to be relatively insignificant and moreover place them under UN control.

Rumsfield and Cheney did not want Saddam disarmed, they wanted him replaced. A UNSCOM success would have made that much more difficult so they simply pulled the plug on the Inspectors.

The suggestion that this Administration is so sensitive to its obligations to International Agencies that it would have shared all of its intelligence on WMD would be touchingly naive if it wasn't so stupidly blind to every bit of action and rhetoric coming out of Washington before and since Inspectors were let into Iraq.

(This may double post = apologies in advance)

[Buckley]

Howard:

First, I'd like to state how odd it feels to be in a position of defending Rumsfeld. As I wrote in my first post, I don't much care for him and was opposed to this war from the get go.

Second, I completely agree with everything you wrote. The point of my original post was not that Rumsfeld is scrupulously candid - he's obviously not; the point was that Professor DeLong seems to think that the statement from March 2003 necessarily means the statement from June 2005 is a lie. If that is what the Professor believes (and it's possible that I'm mis-reading something here), I just disagree.

Once again, I'd like to state that I agree with you. The administration was out to "sell" the war, and salesmen rarely give frank assessments. It doesn't necessarily follow, however, that they are lying.

[Buckley]

Howard:

One more thing, even if I had known that Iraq had WMD for sure, I would have still opposed this war. Countries are going to have WMD whether we like it or not, and sending 150,000 American boys (some friends and family members in my case) to fight and die so 10 countries have WMD instead of 11 seems like an incredibly bad idea.

[howard]

broadly speaking, buckley, we are in agreement: i personally shy away from the "lying" issue because it rarely gets us anywhere. That's why i prefer the formulations i used (including that rumsfeld et al aren't honest people, which isn't the same as saying they lie about everything).

[howard]

er, sorry, buckley, i meant to write another paragraph, namely:

on the other hand, i don't think that calling the bushies "orwellian" is the same as saying that rumsfeld "lied." What they are perfectly willing to do is say whatever they think will work on the day in question....

[Ottnott]

Buckley, Rumsfeld didn't say "We think we know where they are" or "We are pretty sure we know where they are" or "We have information that leads us to believe that they are in the area around Tikrit."

He said "We know where they are." But they couldn't know where they were when they didn't even exist. And I'm not willing to go with the notion that Rumsfeld made his "We know" statement out of ignorance. The information that has come to light in the past few years shows that there was plenty of strong evidence (including the UN inspection teams coming up emptyhanded every time they checked out a lead) to doubt the existence of the WMDs and there was plenty of strong evidence to doubt the intelligence sources who claimed the existence of WMDs in Iraq--even after the Bush administration stretched the meaning of WMDs to include battlefield chemical weapons.

It was a lie, not ignorance.

[Buckley]

Howard:

You make a good point. Professor DeLong used the word Orwellian, not the word liar. I guess I picked up on the general tone of the comments and ascribed it to him. I was wrong to do that.

Ottnott:

My only point was that statement #1 doesn't necessarily make statement #2 a lie. It may very well be, but that's not the only possibility.

Sorry to all for starting this thread - especially to Howard and Ottnott, who have responded with complete civility.

[dogfacegeorge]

It all depends on what the meaning of "know" is.

If "know" means "don't know," then, as DeLong suggests, we have entered the world of doublespeak.

[SqueakyRat]

That wasn't Orwellian, it was a bad apple.

[vonOgenstein]

I don't know why but I recall repeated statements, most notably by Colin Powell in his U.N. speech, that indicated that the U.S. knew exactly where the WMD were.

However, they couldn't tell anybody because if they did, Saddam would move them. Only a child would ask for real proof. I remember many commentators using this ruse to explain why critics of the administration were foolish and naive.

Nobody else seems to remember any of this so I guess my memory must be faulty.