posted on March 14, 2004 03:33:14 PM new
March 15, 2004
Thanks to David Sirota of the Center for American Progress for spotting and forwarding this excerpt in which Rumsfeld is caught in a brazen lie by Bob Schieffer of CBS. Sirota also suggests seeing this [LINK] for further proof of Rumsfeld's lie on "Face the Nation."
Excerpt from "Face the Nation":
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these
weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then
did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only
people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president
didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's
happened. The president went...
SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.
Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration
and say nobody said that.
SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...
Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the nu'--this
is you speaking--`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that
Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I
would not be so certain.'
Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...
Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be
accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...
Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat
to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime
of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'
Sec. RUMSFELD: 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.
posted on March 14, 2004 03:53:36 PM new
Rumsfeld Stole 9-11 Evidence To Keep As Souvenir
By JOHN SOLOMON
Mar 13, 2004, 07:34
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The Justice Department investigation that criticized FBI agents for taking souvenirs from the World Trade Center site also found that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a high-ranking FBI official kept items from the Sept. 11 attack scenes.
The final investigatory report said the Justice Department inspector general confirmed Rumsfeld "has a piece of the airplane that flew into the Pentagon." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report Friday.
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on Sept. 11, 2001.
"He doesn't consider it his own," Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. "We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them."
The Justice Department investigation also collected testimony that Pasquale D'Amuro, FBI Director Robert Mueller's executive assistant director for terrorism until last summer, asked a supervisory agent to "obtain a half dozen items from the WTC debris so the items could be given to dignitaries."
Six items - none needed as evidence - were gathered and sent to D'Amuro, the report said.
D'Amuro, now the head of the FBI's New York office, told investigators that "he asked for a piece of the building as a memento" and that he was aware that agents had taken such items from other terrorist crime scenes over the years.
He said he got a piece of the building in June 2003 but denied asking for items for dignitaries. D'Amuro left the following month from FBI headquarters as Mueller's top terrorism official to become an assistant director in charge of the New York office.
Joe Valiquette, a spokesman for the New York FBI office, declined to comment Friday.
The report also divulged that FBI agents' removal of items like a Tiffany crystal globe from the World Trade Center rubble gutted a criminal case the bureau was building against a Minnesota contractor that had taken a fire truck door from the same rubble.
Prosecutors told the FBI they "might not indict the crime regarding the fire truck door due to government misconduct involving the Tiffany globe," the report said.
Surviving family members were surprised by the latest news.
"Unbelievable," said William Doyle, whose son was killed in the World Trade Center.
"Everybody has things that they probably should not have from the World Trade Center site," added Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the towers. "I'm sure there's probably all kinds of people that have all kinds of artifacts."
The Justice Department's report has not been officially released, but heavily deleted versions of the report began circulating around Washington last month showing 13 FBI agents had taken rubble, debris and items such as flags and a Tiffany crystal globe paperweight.
The bureau announced it was banning agents from taking items from crimes scenes, but no agents were being charged with crimes because the bureau did not have such a policy during the Sept. 11 investigation.
The full report obtained by the AP divulges some senior FBI managers were among those cited for having authorized or asked for mementos from the World Trade Center site.
In addition to D'Amuro, the report stated the now-retired head of the New York FBI office, Barry Mawn, asked and received an American flag and a piece of marble from the debris before his retirement.
The report also states the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Clark, contacted FBI officials in New York requesting a piece of debris to display in an exhibit dealing with hate crimes. A 100-pound piece of steel was sent to Clark, the report said.
The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks.
Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the reported stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts."
The report discloses that among the items taken, agents had cut World Trade Center security patches from the sleeves of shirt pieces found in the rubble.
One New York agent who worked on the evidence recovery team "stated it was a ghoulish prospect that anyone would want things from a crime scene where people have died," the report said.
Two senior FBI lawyers from New York told the investigators they were never consulted by FBI managers about the propriety of taking items, and they would have objected.
The FBI New York office's ethics officer, Steven Carolotto, "emphatically stated FBI agents could not profit from working any location" and the "calamity of the event was inconsistent with the taking of items for personal use."
Investigators also stated that they found evidence that the agent who ran the recovery effort at the landfill, Richard Marx of Philadelphia, gave "inconsistent" answers during the investigation after several colleagues claimed he had given them permission to take items.
Last summer, Marx was subjected to a lie detector test in which he said he did not recall giving items to Mawn, did not recall giving permission for evidence recovery agents to take items and insisted he was completely true when he gave an affidavit to the investigation.
"The results of the examination indicated that Marx was deceptive in his responses to all three questions," the Justice report said. FBI officials declined to comment about Marx's conduct.
Excerpt about the draft or a pitiful example of dodging a question
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about a criticism that's been leveled by the Military Officers
Association of America--that's 300,000 retired and active duty officers--who say that your
plan to increase the size of the Army by the policy they call stop-loss is simply a backdoor
way to reinstitute the draft. They say that when you decided to increase the force levels up to,
I think, 30,000--I may not be exactly right on that figure--that instead of doing that by
recruiting more people, what you're doing are telling people who are already in the service
that they're going to have to stay an extra amount of time, maybe as much as 16 months.
And he--and what they say--this is their criticism--is that this is the most unfair kind of draft
because what you're doing is drafting people who have already served the country. What is
your response to that?
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, obviously, they're not well informed. First of all, the...
SCHIEFFER: Well, they've listed it as their--one of their top legislative priorities is to get this
changed this year.
Sec. RUMSFELD: The fact is they're not well-informed.
SCHIEFFER: All right.
Sec. RUMSFELD: The--the plan for the Army is not my plan for the Army. It's the Army's
plan for the Army. And General Shoemaker and Les Brownly have put it forward. They've
testified on it. And if--we have been increasing the size of the Army for close to two years.
We have emergency power to do that. We've been doing that. The--the suggestions that the
Army should be increased in size are--are basically coming from people who haven't been
watching what's been taking place. It's been growing and it is still growing and it will grow
more in the period ahead under General Shoemaker's plan. The...
SCHIEFFER: Well, you're not saying, sir, are you...
Sec. RUMSFELD: The--the--the--let me..
SCHIEFFER: ...that this is not what they're doing?
Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I am saying that that's not what they're doing. I--I'm saying--I don't
know the full statement that you're--you're referring to, but--but let me just tell you what's
happening. I--rather than commenting on that, because I haven't read it or--or I'm not
familiar with it, I'd rather say what is, in fact, happening. And what is happening is the
Army is going from something like 33 brigades up to 43 or 48 brigades over the next four
years. We are rebalancing the Guard and Reserve with the active force because we inherited
a--a badly imbalanced, unbalanced Army as between the skill sets and the active force and
the Guard and Reserve. And the progress that General Shoemaker has been making is
impressive. Second, the--the suggestion that--stop-loss has always been used, and it is not
used excessively today. It--everyone bends over backwards to not have to use it. But--but...
SCHIEFFER: But you are using it now.
Sec. RUMSFELD: Just a minute, just a minute..
SCHIEFFER: OK.
Sec. RUMSFELD: Everyone--everyone in the service is there who's--is a volunteer. And the
idea of equating that to cons--conscription or a draft is--is inaccurate and--and misses the
point entirely. Everyone there is there as a volunteer.
SCHIEFFER: Yes, sir, but they volunteer for a certain period of time, and then when they're
told...
Sec. RUMSFELD: They--they...
SCHIEFFER: ...as they're about to get out...
Sec. RUMSFELD: Bob...
SCHIEFFER: ...that they're going to have to stay longer...
Sec. RUMSFELD: ...Bob, you're wrong. They volunt...
SCHIEFFER: This is not my--this is not my thing.
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well...
SCHIEFFER: This is what the Military Officers Association of America is saying.
Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I am telling you that the fact is that everyone serving on active duty is a
volunteer and they volunteered knowing precisely what the rules were. And they've known
that stop-loss has been a part of that policy or rule throughout a--a very long period of time.
SCHIEFFER: Do you know how long...
Sec. RUMSFELD: It is nothing new.
SCHIEFFER: ...how many people have been affected by stop-loss in the last couple of years?
Sec. RUMSFELD: We do. We do. I don't have it on the tip of my tongue, but that number...
SCHIEFFER: Would it be about 30,000?
Sec. RUMSFELD: Over time, for some period, like a day or a week or a month that someone
may have served somewhat longer, their--that--that--that number might be right. I don't
know. But when they join, they know that that could be the case. And--and they volunteer
for that, and they understand that. And you have a willing majority of the people on s--
serving today are proud of their service, and--and they're anxious to be serving.
SCHIEFFER: OK. Let's go to Tom.
