Thanks to the awesome site, CrooksandLiars.com, we have a transcript of the exchange between Donald Rumsfeld and Ray McGovern, a former CIA employee. McGovern called him to account for his lies.
Rumsfeld: ...it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.
McGovern: You said you knew where they were.
Rumsfeld: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and...
McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.
Rumsfeld: My words-my words were that-no-no, wait a minute--wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second....
CrooksandLiars.com also comes to the rescue with the exact words Rumsfeld used on This Week, with George Stephanopoulos.
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
And, according to WhatReallyHappened.com, Rummy wasn't the only one who made concrete claims about iraqi WMD.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
--Dick Cheney, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
--Ari Fleischer, 2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
--George W. Bush, 2003
Did they really think that we'd forget? Did they really think that no one was writing this stuff down? Every lie they told is part of the public record and, try as they might, they can't run away from history.
As long as there is history, Bush will always be known as the president who lied us into war (and, if we're lucky, the one who was impeached for it) and the rest of the administration, Rummy included, will be remembered as the sons of bitches who helped him do it.
--Wisco
