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Rumsfeld Retreats, Disclaims Earlier Rhetoric
By Eric Rosenberg
Hearst Newspapers | Ocala Star Banner
Sunday 09 November 2003
Rumsfeld denies he ever made several pre-war
statements.
In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces would be welcomed by the Iraqi
citizenry and that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons.
Now, after both statements have been shown to be
either incorrect or vastly exaggerated, Rumsfeld - with the same trademark
confidence that he exuded before the war - is denying that he ever made such
assertions.
In recent testy exchanges with reporters, Rumsfeld
interrupted the questioners and attacked the premise of the questions if they
dealt with his pre-war comments about weapons of mass destruction and
Americans-as-liberators.
For example, on Feb. 20, a month before the
invasion, Rumsfeld fielded a question about whether Americans would be greeted
as liberators if they invaded Iraq.
"Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be
welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?" Jim Lehrer asked
the defense secretary on PBS' "The News Hour."
"There is no question but that they would be
welcomed," Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces. "Go back to
Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying
kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let
them do."
The Americans-as-liberators theme was repeated by
other senior administration officials in the weeks preceding the war, including
Rumsfeld's No. 2 - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - and Vice President
Cheney.
But on Sept. 25, - a particularly bloody day in
which one U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush, eight Iraqi civilians died in a
mortar strike and a member of the U.S-appointed governing council died after an
assassination attempt five days earlier - Rumsfeld was asked about the surging
resistance.
"Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very
eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms," Sinclair
Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones said to Rumsfeld as the prelude to a question.
The defense chief quickly cut him off.
"Never said that," he said. "Never did. You may
remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find,
anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I
said."
When testifying about Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction before the House Armed Services Committee Sept. 18, 2002, Rumsfeld
said Saddam "has amassed large clandestine stocks of biological weapons."
including anthrax and botulism toxin and possibly smallpox. His regime has
amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin
and mustard gas."
Saddam
Saddam "has at
this moment stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons," he later added,
repeating the charges the next day before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He repeated that theme in the weeks preceding the
war.
Last month, after U.S. weapons hunters reported to
the administration and Congress that they have yet to find a single weapon of
mass destruction in Iraq, Rumsfeld was asked about his earlier statements.
A reporter at a Pentagon news conference asked: "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 U.N. 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."'
With the weapons hunt in its eighth month, Rumsfeld
also has backtracked on his earlier assertions that American troops knew where
the forbidden weapons were hidden.
On March 30, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld said in
an ABC News interview when asked about WMDs: "We know where they are. They're in
the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
In comments Sept. 10 before the National Press Club,
Rumsfeld conceded that he may have overreached. "I said, 'We know they're in
that area," Rumsfeld said. "I should have said, 'I believe we're in that area.
Our intelligence tells us they're in that area,' and that was our best
judgment."
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
--Donald
Rumsfeld
On March 30, on alleged weapons of mass distruction in
Iraq.
"I should have said, 'I believe they're in that
area.' "
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Jump to TO Features for Tuesday 11 November 2003
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