Q and A Gets Rough for Rumsfeld

ATLANTA Anti-war protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday, and one of them, a former CIA analyst, accused him in a question-and-answer session of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

Three other protesters were escorted away by security as each interrupted Rumsfeld's speech by jumping up and shouting various anti-war messages.

Rumsfeld focused his speech on a U.S. need to increase its emphasis on more flexible partnerships with foreign militaries and rethinking of the role of long-established alliances like NATO.

A transcript of his encounter with McGovern follows.
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RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I havenâ??t lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didnâ??t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. The president spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence people and he went to the American people and made a presentation. iIm not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and â??

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were-- Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words â?? my words were that â?? no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

QUESTION: This is America.

RUMSFELD: Youâ??re getting plenty of play, sir.

QUESTION: Iâ??d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: Iâ??m giving it to you.

QUESTION: Well weâ??re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

RUMSFELD: Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

QUESTION: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. Thatâ??s alsoâ?¦

RUMSFELD: He was also in Baghdad.

QUESTION: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital.

Come on, these people arenâ??t idiots. They know the story.

(PROTESTER INTERRUPTS)

RUMSFELD: Let me give you an example.

Itâ??s easy for you to make a charge, but why do you think that the men and women in uniform every day, when they came out of Kuwait and went into Iraq, put on chemical weapon protective suits? Because they liked the style?

They honestly believed that there were chemical weapons. We believed he had those weapons.

QUESTION: Thatâ??s what we call a non sequitur. It doesnâ??t matter what the troops believe; it matters what you believe.

MODERATOR: I think, Mr. Secretary, the debate is over. We have other questions, courtesy to the audience.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1002463146

Ray McGovern bio STTP

Ray McGovernâ??s 27-year career as a CIA analyst spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor. The School is one of ten Jubilee Ministries, not-for-profit organizations inspired by the ecumenical Church of the Saviour and established in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, DC.

The department Ray heads at the School deals with the biblical injunction to â??speak truth to power,â?� and this, together with his experience in intelligence analysis, accounts for his various writings and media appearances over the past year. His focus dovetails nicely with the passage carved into the marble entrance to CIA Headquarters: â??You will know the truth, and the truth will set you freeâ?�â??the ethic mandating that CIA analysts were to â??tell it like it isâ?� without fear or favor.

In January 2003, when it became clear that that ethic was in serious jeopardy, a handful of intelligence community alumni/ae, including Ray, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. VIPS now includes over 35 former professionals from CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Stateâ??s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Army Intelligence, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. VIPSâ?? first effort (of ten thus far) was a same-day critique of Secretary of State Colin Powellâ??s address to the UN on February 5.

In addition to co-authoring some of VIPSâ?? issuances, Ray has published some 20 op-eds over the past year on intelligence-related issues. These have appeared in newspapers and journals around the country like The Birmingham News, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Miami Herald, Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung, The International Herald Tribune, and Der Berliner Tagespiegel, for example.

Over the past several months, he and his VIPS colleagues have made numerous TV, radio and lecture appearances in the US and Europe. They also have appeared in several recent video documentariesâ??notably, â??Uncovered: the Whole Truth About the Iraq Warâ?� (Robert Greenwald) and â??Break the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terrorâ?� (John Pilger).

Rayâ??s duties at CIA included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the Presidentâ?? Daily Brief (PDB). These, the most authoritative genres of intelligence reporting, have been the focus of press reporting on â??weapons of mass destructionâ?� in Iraq and on what the president was told before 9/11. During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Ray received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Fordham College and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Designated a Distinguished Military Graduate, he was commissioned upon graduation and served as an infantry/intelligence officer in the US Army from 1962-64. Ray holds an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham University and a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business Schoolâ??s Advanced Management Program.

At his retirement ceremony, Ray received the Intelligence Commendation Medal and a letter from then-president George H. W. Bush wishing him well in his transition to non-profit work in inner-city Washington. Ray served on the board of Bread for the City from 1989-94, the latter two years as president, before becoming co-director of the Servant Leadership School.

A native New Yorker, he has been married to Rita Kennedy for 42 years; they have five children and six grandchildren.

they have a clip of this on MSN.com

... i was very pleased to see the 3 people that interupted his speech, given what they said... including war criminal, predator etc.

-the people in that audience were fucking assholes, booing the protestors like good sheep... makes me sick

for him to say that he did not lie is f'n absurd

i was watching it on countdown and they showed a 4th man yelling and pointing at the stage, but there was no sound... so it may have been four people...

I'm kinda upset no one is talking about who it was who said it... most news just reports him as an analyst... 27 years in the CIA?? come one...

ya, and when they booed him... I loved when he said 'this is america'... but people are so ignorant... it's a joke...

Rumsfailed got caught in a lie-AGAIN- lol....but dont be a democrat in washington, and ruff up your car, you'll get hanged, you can be a republican and shoot sum1 in the face and nothing will happen, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, you can lie about 911, while being a republican and nothing will happen, but dont be a democrat and lie about getting a BJ, you can lie about reasons for going to war and nothing will happen as long as your a republican I mean a Neo-Con-----up is down down is up

The secret is to make your lies so huge that people cannot see them for what they are without having their fundemental beliefs shattered. Which is more frightening, that they lied, or that they actually believed iraq had these weapons and started the war anyway? All that stuff would have been looted along with the RPGs and artillery shells. Roadside bombs full of nerve gas, sounds like a great strategy to keep america safe, huh?

You people are rediculous.


What if America hadn't gone into Iraq, or even Afghanistan? Granted, we didn't find the WMD's that we believed were there, but we did find countless other weapons, smaller arms, bombs, shoulder launched rockets etc. And we have found several top wanted terrorists in these countries. Terrorists that have sworn themselves against America and against freedom. Do you really want us to not go after these people? Do you want them catching a plane to Mexico and crossing into this country just like all the Mexican immagrants do everyday? Sure, we didn't find what we were originally looking for, but we've found plenty of other reasons to stay there and fight for the freedom and safty of not only the Iraqi people, but of our own people.


To side with the protestors is to side with the terrorists.

Our Enemy is already here and is sitting in the WhiteHouse.
Our Enemy is aready here and takes up space on the CONgress floor...

To side with the enemy is to give up freedom

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skaisdead

You people are rediculous.


What if America hadn't gone into Iraq, or even Afghanistan? Granted, we didn't find the WMD's that we believed were there, but we did find countless other weapons, smaller arms, bombs, shoulder launched rockets etc. And we have found several top wanted terrorists in these countries. Terrorists that have sworn themselves against America and against freedom. Do you really want us to not go after these people? Do you want them catching a plane to Mexico and crossing into this country just like all the Mexican immagrants do everyday? Sure, we didn't find what we were originally looking for, but we've found plenty of other reasons to stay there and fight for the freedom and safty of not only the Iraqi people, but of our own people.


To side with the protestors is to side with the terrorists.

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If America and everyone else that participated in this so called war on terror they would not be in the situation that they are in, dead bodies coming home,never ending money that is getting flushing down the toilet and for what purpose hey?And what weapons are these?Oh you mean the old pieces of shit they purchased from you guys back in 91,and these so called terrorist that you are talking about has had dealings with rumsfield himself and even up to this day,and there is no reasons for invading a country that could by no means have tried to invade america its physically impossible.
And you can't force people to have democracy, if they don't want a democratic society than why force it on them.And how hypocritical are you when your own country doesn't even have freedom or that its democratic, sure who are you kidding mate?
And I did watch that interview on tv and thought how much longer are you going to talk shit?:mad: :pimp: