Rumsfeld/Cheney nuclear weapons quote thing challenged

[Ignoramus]

Here's this article from national review:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-volokh063003.asp

The first time I heard about Rumsfeld's quote:

"I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."

it was from a clip on Democracy now. I thought I had remembered claims of nuclear weapons, being made. It was certainly suggested, but I thought it was also clearly stated. So, I looked around on the internet and found the cheney quote in a few places, all refering to an interview on meet the press. But, I couldn't find the text of the interview to look at in context.

The national review article suggests that Cheney likely misspoke.

The meet the press transcript is here http://www.msnbc.com/news/886068.asp.

Cheney says:

"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."

Elsewhere in the interview Cheney talks about Iraq trying to get nuclear weapons, or he talks about Iraq trying to produce nuclear weapons. So, it could be that he misspoke when he says "nuclear weapons" rather than nuclear weapons programs. To me, it still sounds like he does mean to say nuclear weapons, not nuclear weapons programs. The voice inflection would probably be the give away.

The thing is that I'm used to listening to contradictory claims being made in the same speech by Bush admin people. And this is a problem with trying to neatly describe the deceit in bush admin propaganda.

For example, Rumsfeld saying that they didn't act because of new evidence of Iraq having WMD, boggles the mind.

What was going on before the invasion and even now, has been that they do on the one hand endlessly repeat assertions about "the WMD" that Iraq supposedly has, while only citing evidence of Iraq having WMD in the past. Or bush stating that Iraq has WMD and then also saying look everyone knows that he did have WMD... The proof of their deceit is in an implication.

Clearly, it is not wise to always assume that people are being honest when they talk to you. To analyze what a government is up to, you can't and shouldn't just take their word for it. I think a good analysis comes from looking at different things:

1. What was the policy, that they wrote about to each other?
2. What did their PR people say to the public?
3. What did they do?

A rational person attempts to weigh the implications of what they hear/read from any person. Without being able to trust what people tell you, you can only operate based on your theories of what their intentions are. In other words, you must be a conspiracy theorist, unless you are to be a dupe.

So, that's the trap. If you try to argue about what they really meant, then you get painted as a nut.

I wish I had a more accurate and concise record of what the propaganda was, and how it evolved. I have better knowledge of what their stated policies have been and what their actions have been. I'd love to read a timeline about what the PR emphasis was at different times and how it evolved.

For example, I remember the agony of watching them make flat assertions of WMD over and over again, without offering proof, and the press just going "OK". Then I seem to recall that demands for proof started to become harder to ignore so they started adding "we know what disarming looks like and it doesn't look like this.". To try and dig through the press records and paint a record of what was implied when, is just such an enormous task.

[nixonwasbetterthanW]

1. Cheney's verby of choice is irrefutable evidence

He talks about "reconstituting" nukes. Anyone with a vocabulary bigger than Dubya's, i.e. 99.9% of American adults, would use that verb only in the context of the actual construction itself, not drafting, not blueprinting, not theorizing.

[caledesi]

4. Nuclear Weapons are very scary words. Get it?

These thugs are going down for these lies. They hyped this war to the Nth degree and now they are paying the price.

[gratuitous]

2. A handy phrase

"Anti-matter language, designed to conceal."

Thank Bruce Cockburn for that locutionary gem.

[bpilgrim]

3. thank gore for the internet... ----------------------- LINK

http://news.globalfreepress.com/wmd

;->

peace

[caledesi]

5. I posted a BIG thank-you to Al about a week ago here on DU.

Can't find the link. I guess alot of DUers didn't see it.

Thank you Al Gore for bring the Internet into our homes, because now we have a powerful voice that's being heard.

And for all those freepers who said Al Gore lied saying he invented the Internet. He NEVER said that. NEVER.

He was a visionary and instrumental in getting IT a high priority and getting the Internet into our homes.

And he was recognized for it:

The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania's Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today."

Joseph E. Traub, a computer science professor at Columbia University, claims that Gore "was perhaps the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country. Could we perhaps see an end to cheap shots from politicians and pundits about inventing the Internet?"