Rumsfeld confronted with Iraq 'lies'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to rewrite history on May 4 when he denied making prewar claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction–President Bush's top rationale for war in Iraq. At a contentious public forum in Atlanta, GA, Rumsfeld was interrupted three times by anti-war protesters during a speech, and during a question-and-answer session afterward he was forced to defend himself against charges by a former high-ranking CIA analyst that he intentionally lied to push the US into war in Iraq. Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who once gave President George H.W. Bush his morning intelligence briefings, engaged in what became an extended debate with Rumsfeld after asking why the defense secretary had insisted before the Iraq invasion that there was "bulletproof evidence" linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida. "Was that a lie, Mr. Rumsfeld, or was that manufactured somewhere else? Because all of my CIA colleagues disputed that and so did the 9/11 commission," McGovern asked. "Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary?" Rumsfeld became tongue-tied when McGovern pressed him on claims that he knew where unconventional Iraqi weapons were located. "You said you knew where they were," McGovern said. "I did not. I said I knew where suspected sites were," Rumsfeld retorted. McGovern then read from statements Rumsfeld had made that weapons were located near Tikrit, Iraq, and Baghdad, which led Rumsfeld to briefly stammer. In the middle of this exchange, security guards tried removing McGovern, but the defense secretary told them to let him stay. Two protesters stood up at various points in the speech and accused Rumsfeld of being a war criminal. The record shows that in the weeks preceding the war, Rumsfeld flatly claimed to know the whereabouts of Hussein's weapons arsenal. On Mar. 30, 2003–11 days into the war–Rumsfeld was asked in an ABC News interview if he was surprised that US forces had not yet found any weapons of mass destruction. "Not at all," he said, according to an official Pentagon transcript. "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." His comments in Atlanta were in line with an attempted revision six months after the war started. On Sept. 10, 2003, Rumsfeld addressed the issue in remarks at the National Press Club. "I said, 'We know they're in that area.' I should have said, 'I believe they're in that area. Our intelligence tells us they're in that area,' and that was our best judgment." Six months before the invasion, on Sept. 19, 2002, Rumsfeld testified about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Rumsfeld said Hussein "has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons... large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons," according to the committee's transcript. That theme continued right up to the weeks before the invasion. On Jan. 20, 2003, Rumsfeld told an audience at the Reserve Officers Association that Hussein "has large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, including VX, sarin, mustard gas, anthrax, botulism and possibly smallpox." At a Jan. 29, 2003, Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld said that "the Iraqi regime has not accounted for some 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas, VX nerve agent, upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons," along with mobile biological weapons labs. After US inspectors failed to locate any weapons of mass destruction seven months after the invasion, a reporter at a Pentagon news conference asked Rumsfeld: "In retrospect, were you a little too far-leaning in your statement that Iraq categorically had caches of weapons, of chemical and biological weapons, given what's been found to date? You painted a picture of extensive stocks of Iraqi mass-killing weapons." "Wait," Rumsfeld interjected. "You go back and give me something that talks about extensive stocks. The UN reported extensive stocks. That is where that came from. I said what I believed to be the case, and I don't–I'd be surprised if you found the word 'extensive.'"