At 11:08 PM 3/17/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>http://tinyurl.com/yvkmw
>
>The most vivid display of the Administration's widening credibility gap
>came when CBS's Bob Schieffer asked Rumsfeld "If Iraq did not have WMD,
>why did they pose an immediate threat to this country?" Rumsfeld retorted,
>"You and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase
>'immediate threat.' I didn't...It's become kind of folklore that that's
>what happened." Schieffer repeated his question but Rumsfeld challenged
>the reporter saying, "If you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em." At
>that point, NYT columnist Tom Friedman read Rumsfeld his own words,
>pointing out that the Defense Secretary had told Congress on 9/19/02 that
>"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the
>security of our people" than Iraq and that "some have argued that the
>nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent [but] I would not be so certain."
>According to the transcript of the show, Rumsfeld replied "Mm-hmm. It--my
>view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best
>intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we
>believed and we still do not know--we will know."
Its hard to believe that this is a lie. I don't think that Rumsfeld
would so forcibly deny using the words "immediate threat" if he had
recalled using them.
A far more likely explanation is that he confused the phrase "immediate
threat" with "imminent threat."
And of course, Rumsfeld's answer should have been that only a criminally
incompentant Administration could believe that Iraq did not have WMD's at
the time.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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