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."
Believe it or not, I actually somewhat agree with ya here, John. I bet Rumsfeld honestly /didn't/ recall using that phrase. What bothers me more is, Rummy, baby, two words for the next time people endlessly accuse you of "folklore" - Lexus Nexus. That he didn't take 30 seconds to have some bright intern type in a quick search, and go around spouting off about how certain he is he never used that phrase, is just.. well, nutty.
Yea, well, as far as I'm concerned, imminent is a subset of immediate anyway so it's really a Clintonian "I didn't have sex" kind way of trying to get around responsibility for what was said. He and all the others from the administration told America that conquering Iraq was essential for winning the war on terror when in fact it really wasn't very important at all to take Sadam out.
And no matter how many times someone says "oh, but the U.N. thought there were weapons" or "Gee whiz, Clinton though there were weapons", the only one that is responsible for insuring that the war was justified in the name of the war against terror is the Bush administration. And they were busy insuring that the intelligence they wanted to hear was the stuff that was disseminated despite the fact that their CIA guy was telling them otherwise. Hell, Cheney was still spouting stuff a week or two ago that Tenat told him was BS a long time ago.
We was deceived folks. Big time.
-- Doug imminent - About to occur; impending: in imminent danger
immediate - Of or near the present time: in the immediate future. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
