How Much of the Ray McGovern/Don Rumsfeld Exchange Have You Seen, Heard or Read?

Probably very little.

In searching the internet I have only found details on blogs. I couldn’t even find Ray McGovern in the recent NPR archives! Why is the media, like the AP, only covering the surface of this story? Why aren’t we presented with the entire exchange by multiple sources instead of just one source?

Maybe the “truthiness” of what Stephen Colbert said to reporters at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 29, 2006, will provide some insight:

As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s side, and the vice president’s side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they’re super-depressing. And if that’s your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!

In other words, the Administration has a well developed system to control the media and Fox News leads the way, especially when the Administration is on the defensive. Just look and listen to the response of the correspondents at the dinner. They were dumbfounded and, I think, embarrassed.

As I mentioned above, I found only one source with the complete exchange. If you are interested and want to be your own judge and jury instead of just believing what Fox News believes, here is the transcript from “Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann.” He not only played the entire exchange, but also interjected evidence to back up McGovern’s statements.

OLBERMANN:  Good evening.

There have been many explanations offered for why, in one of the times of the greatest political turbulence in American history, there has been comparative apathy in places that have been past venues for public protest.  One answer, that the administration has been outstanding in cherry-picking not just intelligence but also the makeup of the crowds that greet or interact with its key players.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN, that latter component, the governmental equivalent of the Cone of Silence from the old TV series “Get Smart,” this afternoon broke down again, for the second time in six days.

First, the president’s lambasting by Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and now, today’s vivisection of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, with only Rumsfeld’s own words as weapons, at a speech in Atlanta, one of several interchanges with critics, in this case a former CIA analyst, lasting four minutes.

Here it is in its entirety, with fact-checks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF ATLANTA MCGOVERN/RUMSFELD EXCHANGE)

MCGOVERN:  I’m Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

I would like to compliment you on your observation that lies are fundamentally destructive of the trust that government needs to govern.  A colleague of mine, Paul Pillar, who is the top agency analyst on the Middle East and on counterterrorism, accused you and your colleagues of an organized campaign of manipulation, quote.  I suppose by some definitions—

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Could you get to your question please?

MCGOVERN:  –that could be called a lie.
Atlanta, September 27, 2002, Donald Rumsfeld said, and I quote—

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (INAUDIBLE)–

MCGOVERN:  –“There is bulletproof evidence of links between al Qaeda and the government of President Saddam Hussein.”  Was that a lie, Mr.  Rumsfeld?  Or was that manufactured somewhere else?  Because all of my CIA colleagues disputed that, and so did the 9/11 commission.

And so I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people.  Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, and that has caused these kinds of casualties?  Why?

RUMSFELD:  Well, first of all, I haven’t lied.  I did not lie then.

Colin Powell didn’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.

I’m not in the intelligence business.  They gave the world their honest opinion.  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 we were—

MCGOVERN:  You said—

RUMSFELD:  –just a minute—

MCGOVERN:  –you said you knew where there were, near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and northeast, south, and west of there.  Those are your words.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  Just a second indeed.  Rumsfeld’s words about WMD, March 30, 2003, on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” were, quote, “We know where they are.  They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south, and north somewhat.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF ATLANTA MCGOVERN/RUMSFELD EXCHANGE)

MCGOVERN:  This is America, huh?

RUMSFELD:  You’re getting plenty of play, sir.

MCGOVERN:  I’d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD:  I’m giving it to you.

MCGOVERN:  We’re talking about lies, and your allegation that there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  Did Rumsfeld make that allegation?  Indeed, he did.  September 27, 2002, to the Chamber of Commerce right there in Atlanta, quoting, “We ended up with five or six sentences that were bulletproof.  We could say them.  They’re factual.  They’re exactly accurate.  They demonstrate that there are, in fact, al Qaeda in Iraq.  But they’re not photographs, they’re not beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Still, Mr. Rumsfeld again had to face his own words quoted back to him.  How to do that?  Change the subject.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF ATLANTA MCGOVERN/RUMSFELD EXCHANGE)

MCGOVERN:  Was that a lie?  Or were you misled?

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

MCGOVERN:  Zarqawi?  He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule.  That’s where he was.

RUMSFELD:  He was also in Baghdad.

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

Come on, these people aren’t idiots.  They know the story.

RUMSFELD:  You are–  Let me give you an example.  It’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.

Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons on his own people previously.  He’d used them on his neighbor, the Iranians.  And they believed he had those weapons.  We believed he had those weapons.

MCGOVERN:  That’s what we call a non sequitur.  It doesn’t matter what the troops believed.  It matters what you believed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I think, Mr. Secretary, the debate is over.  We have other questions, in courtesy to your audience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

After reviewing the above details and coming to your own conclusion about whether the United States Secretary of Defense is lying, here are some selected quotes from the widely distributed AP article by Shannon McCaffrey on the same exchange. You would probably come to a different conclusion or no conclusion if this was what you read. There are few details about the exchange and it concludes with a happy homey perspective.

In recent weeks, at least a half dozen retired generals have called for Rumsfeld’s resignation, saying he has ignored advice offered by military officers and made strategic errors in the Iraq war, including committing too few troops. However, he has received strong backing by Bush, who repeatedly has indicated that he will keep Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.

When security guards tried removing McGovern, the analyst, during his persistent questions of Rumsfeld, the defense secretary told them to let him stay. The two continued to spar. [Note the lack of detail and the following:]

“You’re getting plenty of play,” Rumsfeld told McGovern, who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.

Responding to another protester who also accused Rumsfeld of lying, the secretary said such accusations are “so wrong, so unfair and so destructive.” At one point, Rumsfeld was praised by an audience member who said he had followed Rumsfeld’s career and wondered what in his upbringing had shaped his positive outlook on life.

“I guess one thing I’d say is that my mom was a schoolteacher and my dad read history voraciously. And I guess I adopted some of those patterns of reading history,” he replied.

So, just how much control of the media is there? Too much. Besides the media, those in power have even got the opposing party shut down, or at least isolated from the media.

One more thing, if you took the time to go through all the above, congratulations, your part of the growing solution.