On Christmas Day, we received a message from a reader pointing us to a remark made by Donald Rumsfeld during his surprise visit to Iraq to show the troops that he wasn't such a bad guy after all. Rummy had been coming up for criticism for his remarks to US soldiers on their lack of armour, his famous "you go to war with the army you have", and Bill Kristol, an important propagandist for the neocons, had been demanding Rummy's removal, though for other reasons. So off the US Secretary of Defence went to Baghdad on a PR tour to save his job.

According to the following CCN transcript, while he was addressing the troops, Rummy made the following remark:

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And to change
that way of living, would strike at the very essence of our country.

And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word "terrorized" is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.

Rummy's statement is rich because for once he is telling us the truth. He tells us that Flight 93, erected in myth as the flight where the passengers struck back to prevent another "attack", was shot down. This version of events does not mesh with the official story, enshrined in The 9/11 Commission Report. Rummy's new take on events is the version recounted by those so-called "conspiracy theorists" who do not buy the official version, who have seen the holes, inconsistencies, and lies woven together to justify America's Imperial plunder, and who want something better -- the truth.

But Rummy's admission is not all.

Rumsfeld is telling us that all the events he mentions were done by the same forces, those who "shot down the plane over Pennsylvania". There is only one authority who could have shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 -- members of the US military. And if elements in the US military were responsible for shooting down Flight 93.... Well, someone doesn't want us going there. However, we agree with Rumsfeld that the purpose of the people behind these events is to "intimidate, to frighten...to alter behavior, to make people be something than that which they want to be".

It sums up the Bush Administration to a "t".

Such a slip could not be left to stand. Too many people who had seen the holes in the official story were waiting to fall upon Rumsfeld's words and use them to buttress their campaign to know the truth. You know, the "conspiracy theorists".

But Rummy's words were "out there". How to do damage control? Call upon your friends at CNN. CNN would have to do because the good folks at Fox News had not reported this particular remark by Rummy. No need to disturb the great Fox-washed.

Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash Defense secretary's remark to troops fuels conspiracy theories

From Jamie McIntyre CNN Washington

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers. But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania." A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down. "Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com. Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists. The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.

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And the answer is?! "Rumsfeld simply misspoke." Really. He "has not changed his opinion". Honest. He knows how important the image of "Let's roll" is to the whole 9/11, "let's make America safer", mythology. The war against terrorism started on that flight; you can't change the story now, no matter the truth.

Poor Don. He was probably confused, suffering from jet lag. It is so hard to keep the official story straight when the body is reacting to a change of so many time zones. Maybe he forgot to take his melatonin.

What is curious is that this is not the first time that Donald Rumsfeld has "misspoken" on the subject of 9/11, that is, in the sense of telling the truth, of recounting details that go against the official version. The official story tells us that it was AA Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon and disappeared leaving no traces after passing through three rings of reinforced steel and concrete, disappeared leaving nothing but the bodies of the victims on the plane. Somehow the heat, fireball, and explosion that made the vaporized the plane didn't have the same effect upon the bodies of the victims. Readers of this page will have seen our Pentagon Strike flash presentation on the subject, as well as Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Comments on the Pentagon Strike.

On the DoD's own website, we find an interview with the Secretary of Defence where he explains what happened on that day. The interview with Parade Magazine was conducted on October 12, 2001.

Therein we find the following comment from Rumsfeld:

It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it's physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.

Oops. "A missile"? That isn't in the Commission's report. Did Rumsfeld "misspeak"?

Then again, there is this statement from the questioning of Rumsfeld by 9/11 Commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick during the commission hearings:

GORELICK: Well, I expect that you would. So now I would like to talk about the aspects that were in your control. I had a conversation with Secretary Wolfowitz's -- one of his predecessors, when the 1996 Olympics were being planned about what do we do when an aircraft is being hijacked and is flying into a stadium at the Olympics? What is the military's response? What is it's role? And it has always been my assumption that even though, yes, you were looking out, that you have a responsibility to protect our airspace. So my question is: In this summer of threat, what did you do to protect, let's just say the Pentagon, from attack? Where were our aircraft when a missile is heading toward the Pentagon? Surely that is within the Pentagon's responsibility to protect -- force protection, to protect our facilities, to protect something -- our headquarters, the Pentagon. Is there anything that we did at the Pentagon to prevent that harm in the spring and summer of '01?

Oops. Was the good commissioner also "misspeaking"? It does get difficult to maintain a cover story if high-ranking officials charged with spreading disinformation go around telling the truth!

So what is "misspeak" -- if you permit us to make a noun out of this overused verb. A quick Google search on "Rumsfeld" & "misspoke" comes up with 5,210 items. Do the same for Bush, and it goes to 20,900!

As one blogger, Dusty Rhoades, wrote on the subject of "misspeaking" (the entire article is below):

Rummy is just one of a number of Administration officials who are having to "revise" some of their former statements on Iraq. Back on March 16th, Vice President Dick Cheney had this to offer on NBC's "Meet the Press": "We believe he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." A few Sundays ago, Cheney was back on "Meet the Press". Good ol' Tim Russert, with the kid-gloves, please-don't-call-us-traitors-and-cost-us-ad-revenues handling that the entire press corps has inexplicably adopted, offered Cheney an out: "You misspoke?" Russert asked. And a grateful Cheney seized the chance: "Yeah, I did misspeak. We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon." Ah. I get it. We believed it, but there was no evidence.

Rhoades sums up his point saying:

Now, "I misspoke" and "I should have been more precise" are not bad ways to cover up, shall we say, a departure from the truth. (No one seems to want to use the word "lie" anymore.) It's a particularly effective tactic to do what Wolfowitz did: make an inflammatory statement on a nationally watched news show then "correct" your "inaccuracy" off the air where a lot fewer people hear it.

But "sometimes I overstate for emphasis"? Man, that is brilliant. It makes lying (oops, there's that word again, sorry) look like some sort of roguishly endearing personal quirk. "Gosh darn it, am I overstating for emphasis again?"

The word no one dares speak -- or is that "misspeak"? Lying.

So we come to the real issue. In our 1984 world of newspeak, words take on new meanings. Politicians no longer "lie"; they "misspeak". Civilians are no longer killed in war; they are "collateral damage". There is a whole raft of terms that contain hidden meanings for Bush's fundamentalist Christian base that mean something else entirely to other Americans. These terms come forward to join the ranks of the famous "terrorist/freedom fighter" distinction that was so prevalent under the Reagan Administration.

You all remember the "freedom fighters", don't you? Those were the Islamic fundamentalists who were fighting for democracy and freedom in Afghanistan. One small group was led by a Saudi by the name of...what was his name again...the guy with the beard...oh, right: Osama bin Laden, from a family with close business ties to the US Vice President at the time...what was his name...George something or other.

And you remember the Reagan Administration. That was the one that was friendly to a Middle Eastern leader by the name of Saddam Hussein, selling him chemical weapons through salesman Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld. Weren't we talking about Rumsfeld?

Let's return to September 11, 2001 and look at Rumsfeld's actions on that day.

This Rumsfeld is certainly a very well informed guy for having to deal with such inept US intelligence agencies. First he predicts there will be "another event", and then, when his words prove prophetic a mere two minutes later, he tells his guests that "it isn't over yet" and that the next target "could be us".

One wonders what sort of crystal ball Rumsfeld had on his desk that morning.

Notice, too, that it was Rummy who decided that the attack had been done by a plane. Perhaps he knew it was a plane because his crystal ball informed him the attacks were "Ariel" in nature.

For more detailed info on Madame Rummy, super clairvoyant, let's return to his Parade interview of the following month, the one where the plane has been transformed into a missile.

As a side note to this interview, Lyric Wallwork Winik has written an article for Parade about 9/11 "Conspiracy theories". In a box on that page, it states:

The Internet, too, is a potent tool for spreading conspiracy theories. PARADE found this out after Lyric Wallwork Winik interviewed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Oct. 2001. In a transcript of Winik's interview with Rumsfeld, which was published on the Department of Defense's Web site, Rumsfeld seemed to indicate that the Pentagon was hit by a missile on 9/11 instead of a plane. It turns out that a transcription error led to the confusion, but conspiracy theorists latched onto Rumsfeld's supposed admission and spread it over the Internet.

There they go again, those pesky "conspiracy theorists". Taking poorly transcribed interviews out of context!

So here it isn't a question of "misspeaking", but of a "transcription error". Good to have friends covering your backside. The close relations between Winik and Rumsfeld are to be seen in this final exchange in the interview:

Q: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. It was fascinating.

I have something quickly for you from my husband who I think you know. The president loved the book as (inaudible) and Secretary Cheney (inaudible) on Saturday night for dinner, and we wanted you to have a copy. I don't know when you'll get the time, but --

Q: Am I allowed to accept this?

Unfortunately, more garbled transcriptions do not allow us to piece together the precise nature of the connections between Winik, the President, and Cheney, but you get the picture.

The other interesting bit of data here is the reference to Colin Powell's being out of the country. While we have no love for Powell, the man whose career lust permits him to stand up before the UN and declare that he has proof of Saddam's WMDs, it is well-known that he had differences with Rumsfeld. And he was out of the country on September 11. Imagine that!

Must just be another of those strange coincidences. You know the ones: the plane hitting the one area of the Pentagon that had been reinforced rather than hitting the roof where the damage would have been greater. Perhaps Hani Hanjour, the incompetent pilot accused of being in the cockpit of Flight 77, was aiming for the roof and missed! Or the fact that a military jet was seen near the site of the crash of Flight 93, the one that Rumsfeld said was shot out of the sky and whose pieces were strewn over an area of many miles -- typical of dozens, er, several, er, the occasional plane, er, this crash.

Let us continue our look at Rumsfeld's actions on that morning. He is in his office, not only aware that they were being attacked, but with precognitive abilities that allowed him to foresee the attack. When the Pentagon is attacked, he runs outside where everyone can see him at the same time that Cheney is being sequestered in the White House bunker and the President is being hopped around the country in Air Force One and told not to return to Washington because it wasn't safe.

Curious, no?

Did someone forget to tell Rumsfeld that he was in danger? Given that two planes had hit the WTC, and that a fourth plane, Flight 93 was still in the air, supposedly heading for Washington, how could Rumsfeld be so certain it wouldn't come down on the Pentagon?

How did Rumsfeld know that there would be no more attacks on the building? Must have been the same intuition that told him "we could be next".

Just prior to 10:00, the Pentagon sent out a press release:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 11, 2001

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

EMERGENCY RESPONSE AT THE PENTAGON

The Department of Defense is continuing to respond to the attack that occurred this morning at 9:38 a.m. EDT. There are no casualty figures currently available. Injured personnel were taken to several area hospitals. Secretary of Defense Donald S. Rumsfeld has expressed his concern for the families of those killed and injured during this shameless attack and is directing operations from his command center in the Pentagon.

All personnel were evacuated from the building as emergency response personnel from the Department of Defense and surrounding communities responded to fire and medical emergencies. Initial estimates of the damage are significant; however, the Pentagon is expected to be reopened tomorrow morning. Alternate worksites for those affected parts of the building are currently being identified.

In this first announcement, no mention is made of the nature of the attack, no mention of a plane hitting the building. Curious, no? Also curious is the fact that this release has been removed from the DoD server and is now only available at the site indicated above.

The early reports from the Pentagon spoke of a "helicopter explosion" or the explosion of a truck. It was only many hours later that the announcement was made that it had been Flight 77. So during the period when there were still mixed reports on the nature of the attack, Rumsfeld was out and about as if there was no danger of another attempt.

After helping to give aid to some of the victims, he comes back in and says that he has been told by "someone who'd seen it" that it was a plane that struck the building. Still, no one was talking about AA Flight 77. That only came later in the day.

Questions. So many questions.

It is clear to us that 9/11 was carried off with the foreknowledge of highly placed officials in Washington. In trying to piece the clues together, even small things can be important. Was Rumsfeld's behavior on that morning significant? Does it imply Rumsfeld had foreknowledge?

We'll end this round-up with a transcript of a press conference held by Donald Rumsfeld with leaders, both Republican and Democratic, of the Senate Armed Forces Commission. In front of the international press, Rumsfeld addressed Senator Carl Levin (D - Michigan):

Senator Levin, you and other Democrats in Congress have voiced fear that you simply don't have enough money for the large increase in defense that the Pentagon is seeking, especially for missile defense, and you fear that you'll have to dip into the Social Security funds to pay for it. Does this sort of thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase defense spending, to dip into Social Security, if necessary, to pay for defense spending -- increase defense spending ?

Think of this in the light of the current attack on the Social Security program in the US Congress, led by the Bush Administration.