Rumsfeld:" NONE OF US Ever Believed They Had Nuclear Weapons"

[kpete]

Page 102, State of Denial,

Rumsfeld: We never - none of us ever believed that they had nuclear weapons.


Interview with Woodward on July 6, 2006.

Page 97, State of Denial

Bush in October, 2002: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mmushroom cloud.



Secretary Rice, Late Edition, September 8, 2002: We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloudhttp://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/



Vice President Cheney, September 8, 2002-On NBC's Meet the Press: Vice President Dick Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms. "We're at the point where we think time is not on our side. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/

Cheney at VFW Convention, August 26, 2002.The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq; these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...

via:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/1/115913/036

[donco6]

1. He's just gotta go.

Will they get this guy out of here already? Surely even the Repugs see what a liability he is?

[barbtries]

12. they ALL

just gotta go

[misternormal]

23. I smell a round-up... YEEEEHAHHHHH !!! n/t

[EFerrari]

13. They need to keep him because he and Cheney are joined at the hip.

[tuvor]

2. A few days ago they were saying "everyone" believed they had WMDs.

[Sydnie]

4. and we all remember them saying that at the time too

[struggle4progress]

16. None of the Bushistas believed it, but they said it anyway, and did their

best to scare everybody else into believing it ...

[salin]

3. "We know where they are"

arrogant *ssh#l@ doesn't even care that his words can be recalled and refute what he says now.

[NewJeffCT]

5. I think Will Pitt has the exact quote from Cheney a while back

Where he says something like "we know for a fact he has nuclear weapons"

[struggle4progress]

18. Bigtime Dick said: "We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear

clear weapons" (Meet the Press 3/16/03)

[trof]

6. "Although at least one of us thought they might have nukewlur weapons."

;-)

[magellan]

7. Keep digging, Rummy

We can still hear you.

[driver8]

8. "Wait...what lie did I tell you the first time?"

These criminals lie so much, they can't even keep their lies straight!!

[helderheid]

9. mushroom cloud much?

[Swede]

10. Oh they said it. They just didn't believe it.

Liars one and all.

[samsingh]

11. that's not what the gop told the rest of us

[Joanne98]

14. You know. Rumsfield is actually the most honest of all of them.

but I think that's because he's a nut.

[rman]

24. Which has some interesting implications

for a certain other event about which Rummy has made some anomalous claims...

[earthside]

15. How is this verified?

If this statement by Rummy, quoted by Woodward is on tape, or if it can be verified through other witnesses ... then resignations are in order.

Not just Rummy --- but Bush and Cheney, too.

"None of us."

Of course, that means that they were ALL LYING from the very beginning.

Since these political thugs have no honor whatsoever, they will not resign, so impeachment is the only remedy.

We should all be getting ready for a big Constitutional crisis ... that is where it looks like all of this is headed.

[Peace Patriot]

17. That's a hoot. But actually it's true, in a way. They knew there were no

nukes because their scheme to plant phony nukes in Iraq--to be "found" by the US troops who were "hunting" for the phantom WMDs--had failed. I think that's what got Plame and the entire CIA counter-proliferation network that she headed outed, disabled and in danger of their lives. And it may be what the torture has been all about (or part of it) as well (--who foiled their plans?). And all of this--a plot to PLANT nukes in Iraq--may also be connected to the highly suspicious death of the Brits chief WMD expert, David Kelly, four days after Plame was outed. His office and computers were searched after his death, and, four days after that, the entire Brewster-Jennings network was ADDITIONALLY outed. (People forget that there were TWO outings--first of Plame, then of Brewster-Jennings--and three, if you count Kelly being mysteriously outed to his bosses, as the BBC whistleblower, 2-3 weeks before Plame was outed.)

The coincidence of these dates is too compelling to ignore. May 22, 2003: Kelly begins whistleblowing (post-invasion) about the "sexed up" pre-war intel on WMDS. Last week of June: Somehow Kelly's bosses find out who the whistleblower is. First week of July: Kelly interrogated at a "safe house." July 6: Wilson publishes his article. July 7: Blair informed that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things" (--not HAD said) (Hutton report). July 14: Plame outed (by Novak). July 18: Kelly found dead (not likely suicide, maybe 1% chance--most likely murdered); his office and computers searched. July 22: Plame's entire CIA counter-proliferation network outed (also by Novak), putting all of our covert agents/contacts at great risk of getting killed. (Counter-proliferation = trying to PREVENT the movement of illicit WMDs.)

Another plank in this theory is that the "plan" goes back to the 2001 Rome meeting, attended by Pentagon Neo-Cons, the head of Italian intel, and Manucher Ghorbanifar (notorious Iran-Contra arms dealer). This is likely where the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries were cooked up. And it is a logical step B of the forgeries scheme, to make the forgeries come true, by the troops "discovering" planted nukes in Iraq--justifying the war by means of this nefarious deceit. Another interesting bit on connective tissue in this theory is Judith Miller (notorious NYT war propagandist) who was accompanying the troops on the "hunt" for WMDs, and also was a colleague of David Kelly's (they wrote a book together--"Germs"). It was to Miller that Kelly wrote one of his last emails, on the day of his death (July 17), in which he expressed concern about the "many dark actors playing games."

It's a good working theory, anyway. Holds up pretty well. So, yeah, they all knew there were no nukes. Somebody foiled their plan.

-----------------------

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush lies and contradictory statements about WMDs. It's easy enough to forget what you said yesterday, and contradict it today, a) if it's all deep doo-doo deceit anyway, with no basis in reality; b) if the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are covering for you; and c) if you know that you will never be accountable to the voters for anything you say, because your buds at Diebold/ES&S will be "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--both for you and for your "pod people" Congress.

[Peace Patriot]

21. Just want to add, more explicitly, about this coincidence of dates (and

themes), that Kelly was being hunted down within government and outed to his bosses (as the BBC whistleblower) simultaneous with the Libby/Miller meetings in late June 2003, that were leading up to the Plame outing. The flurry of activity within the Bush Junta to get Plame and her entire network outed, was matched by the flurry of activity within their Blair subsidiary, to find out what ELSE David Kelly knew and might tell the public (besides the exaggerated pre-war intel on WMDs, which wasn't really all that much of a bombshell). The frantic nature of these activities, on both sides of the Atlantic, points to something far worse, and of much more concern to them, than an ex-diplomat's dissenting op-ed in the NYT (Wilson's article--which could have been smothered in the newsstream at the time) and an honest scientist expressing regrets about the spin put on WMD intelligence before the invasion. You don't take on the CIA and endanger the lives of its operatives for public relations reasons (they had that nailed anyway--with our corporate news monopolies being their propaganda arm), and you don't interrogate your top WMD expert at a "safe house" and threaten him with the Official Secrets Act for the kinds of things Kelly had told the BBC. And then he ends up dead--of one slit wrist (minor artery), having bled to death all night out in the rain under a tree not far from his home--a week later? I mean, come on. (For one thing, where was Kelly's surveillance at the time? SURELY they had this man under surveillance, after they outed him to the press and sent him home without protection!) Something specific is behind all this--something much more damning than Wilson or Kelly had disclosed--and it's hard to see for all the fog in front of it. And I simply don't believe that it was concern by Bush/Blair & Co. about disclosure of pre-war exaggerations. Their reactions were too concentrated (and coordinated?) in that brief time period, and too risky (including high risk to many top people), to be a mere concern about P.R. spin. Some of those involved may have THOUGHT that's what they were doing--Rove, for instance--but everything points to fear and panic among the masterminds of the war, as when a criminal scheme goes wrong And a criminal scheme to plant nukes in Iraq that was foiled by someone or someones in Brewster-Jenning's network of counter-proliferation agents and contacts, that David Kelly found out about, and that was about to be exposed, fills the bill nicely. Caught in the act. Panic. Out ALL the agents/contacts immediately. Invent a cover story that it was Rovian political revenge. And silence Kelly. (And have these agents/contacts in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and other likely routes for the planted WMDs--those who didn't meet their deaths immediately--now been captured, tortured and disappeared? Is this one of the reasons for the secret prisons?)

[BlueEyedSon]

19. And nuke WMD (ad opposed to chem & bio) are the only one that can

really cause mass casualties.....

[Gabi Hayes]

20. I like these:

In August 2002, Vice President Cheney said: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney, on MTP, March 16, 2003:
''We saw on 9/11 19 men hijack aircraft with airline tickets and box cutters, kill 3,000 Americans in a couple of hours. That attack would pale into insignificance compared to what could happen, for example, if they had a nuclear weapon and detonated it in the middle of one of our cities, or if they had unleashed weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons of some kind, smallpox or anthrax, on a major attack on the United States.

.....We know that based on intelligence that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq’s concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.''

[gully]

22. "They're in the area around Tikrit"

March 30, 2003: ABC's This Week

RUMSFELD: We know where are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.

Granted this was pertaining to "WMD's" BUT, they deliberately muddied the waters between WMD and "mushroom clouds."

MM has a nice link here:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200608110001

[malaise]

25. Ray McGovern caught his ass in public.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/1432203