Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Secretary Rumsfeld
There's just something about the way Rumsfield handles the media that tickles me...
In this recent transcript of a DoD news briefing are some examples:
Q Mr. Secretary, I'd like to clear up exactly what you're saying here. Are you saying that this poll and that what you call the rush toward declaring civil war in Iraq, is that the result of intentional misreporting of the situation there?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I can't go into people's minds. All I'm doing is reporting on what we've seen. General Casey pointed out to this group here that he believes -- his data shows that the numbers of mosque attacks and the nature of the attacks and the severity of the attacks have been considerably exaggerated and that the number of civilian Iraqis that have been killed or wounded has been exaggerated.
And -- now, why someone or whoever did this, I have no way to judge. I'm not going to judge them. It's just a fact that he is saying that, and I believe he's correct.
Q But you said, Sir, that -- I believe that the reporting was virtually one-sided. Does that mean --
SEC. RUMSFELD: Yeah, the interesting thing about it is they all seem to be of a kind. All the things that have later been corrected or need to be corrected or that he believes were exaggerated all seem to be on one side of the equation. We don't see the similar thing on the other side, which you normally would get in some kind of a random spread, one would think.
