Rumsfeld Speaks

Are the rats leaving a sinking ship, or have the people around Bush all spun off into their own individual delusion universes? A few days ago, Colin Powell was actually admitting that things in Iraq weren't looking so good. Today, Condi Rice seems to have no problem with having lied about the aluminum tubes, as shown in the New York Times article, but her self-serving justification for why it was all right is destroyed by the same article. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld has suddenly wandered off the reservation into some other fairyland. From Reuters:

During a question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Rumsfeld also was asked what was the "number-one reason for the war."

Rumsfeld said President Bush made the judgment that Saddam "ran a vicious regime that had used weapons of mass destruction on its own people, as well as its neighbors, and that it was important to set that right by removing that regime before they, in fact, did gather weapons of mass destruction, either themselves or transferring them to terrorist networks."

I can just hear Jon Lovitz now: "Yeah, that's the ticket! We were removing the regime BEFORE it gathered weapons of mass destruction! Yeah, yeah, that's right."

Folks, don't we all remember that they said Saddam already had WMD? Wasn't that the threat? The smoking gun/mushroom cloud bit? Do you really think we went to war to "set right" the gassing of Iraqis and Iranians that happened more than a decade ago?

Oddly, while spinning off into strange new dimensions of rationalization on this issue, he had a peculiar moment of connection to reality on the al Qaeda/Iraq connection:

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," Rumsfeld added.

Just how does this square with his previous statements?

On Sept. 26, 2002, Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon of evidence of contacts and cooperation.

"We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training. And when I say contacts, I mean between Iraq and al Qaeda," Rumsfeld said at the time.

"We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe-haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal nonaggression discussions. We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire ... weapons of mass destruction capabilities," Rumsfeld added at the time.

Just how all of these contradictions can fit in one mind will have to remain one of those known unknowns.