My Meeting With Rumsfeld: by Ray McGovern

[kpete]

My Meeting With Rumsfeld
Ray McGovern
May 08, 2006
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The fact that my presence there was pure coincidence turned out to be a huge disappointment for those who began interviews later that day by insisting I tell them why I had stalked Rumsfeld all the way from Washington to Atlanta. Especially people like Paula Zahn, who asked me on Thursday evening "what kind of axe" I had to grind with him.

To prepare for my presentations, I took along a briefcase full of notes and clippings, one of which was a New York Times article datelined Atlanta, Sept. 27, 2002, quoting Rumsfeld’s assertion that there was “bulletproof” evidence of ties between al-Qaida and the government of Saddam Hussein.

This was the kind of unfounded allegation that, at the time, deceived 69 percent of Americans into believing that the Iraqi leader played a role in the tragedy of 9/11. Rumsfeld’s “bulletproof” rhetoric also came in the wake of an intensive but quixotic search by my former colleagues at the CIA for any reliable evidence of such ties.
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more at:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/08/my_meeting_with_rumsfeld.php

and

Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's House
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2006-05-09 05:48. Activism
By David Swanson

Ray McGovern wasn't aiming to make Donald Rumsfeld stutter and stammer like a kid caught cheating on a test when he asked him last week why he'd lied us into a war. That was just a side benefit. Ray wants answers, and he's taking his demand to Donald Rumsfeld's house in Washington, D.C.

On Thursday, May 18, a large coalition of groups is planning to deliver to the White House all the signatures and comments posted on a petition at www.DontAttackIran.org As the name of the site suggests, the petition simply asks the President and Vice President not to launch another aggressive attack on foreign soil – an attack that would necessarily be promoted with lies, lies that are already being spread by the Bush administration.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/rumsfeld

[incapsulated]

1. Thanks for that.

I love this guy.

With the exception of CNN—and MSNBC which also did its homework and displayed the tangled web woven by the normally articulate defense secretary—the other networks generally limited their coverage to the “he-said-but-he-said” coverage more typical of what passes for journalism these days. Even CNN found it de rigueur to put neocon ideologue Frank Gaffney on with me for Wolf Blitzer. Gaffney is well to the right of Rumsfeld, so I should not have been surprised to hear Gaffney take the line that the U.S. may still find evidence of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hope springs eternal.

And there were more subliminal messages. In some press reports I was described as a “Rumsfeld critic” and “heckler” who was, heavens, “rude to Rumsfeld.” Other accounts referred to my “alleged” service with the CIA, which prompted my wife to question—I think in jest—what I was really doing for those 27 years. I believe I was able to convince her without her performing additional fact checking.

[Selatius]

2. Check out the last three paragraphs:

All in all, my encounter with Rumsfeld was for me a highly instructive experience. The Center’s president, Peter White, singled out Rumsfeld’s “honesty” in introducing him, and 99 percent of those attending seemed primed to agree. Indeed, their reaction brought to mind film footage of rallies in Germany during the thirties. When Rumsfeld replied to my first question about his false statements on Iraq 's WMD, the applause was automatic. “I did not lie then...,” he insisted.

This was immediately greeted with what Pravda used to describe as “stormy applause,” followed immediately by rather unseemly shouts by this otherwise well-disciplined and well-heeled group to have me summarily thrown out. At the end, as we all filed out slowly, I could make eye contact with only one person—who proceeded to berate me for being insubordinate.

Scary. No open minds there. A graphic reminder for those wishing to spread some truth around that we have our work cut out for us. We have to find imaginative ways to use truth as a lever to pry open closed minds.

This guy is blunt.

[caledesi]

3. Thanks to a most honorable man - Ray McGovern.

Seems alot of people are finding the balls to speak up lately. Ain't it great?

[incapsulated]

4. Kick for Ray.