Rumsfeld: "It's All The Fault of the Media (Stupid)"

In time-proven Bush Administration style, soon-to-be-ex Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld makes it clear that he make no mistakes and that anything possibly perceived as an error is actually the fault of the media.

From Editor & Publisher:

Delivering the annual Landon Lecture at Kansas State University, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, soon to leave his post, continued to accuse the media of being "successfully" manipulated by the terrorists.

He also continued to lend some credence to beliefs that Iraq under Saddam Hussein did have WMDs -- and spirited them out of the country or buried them before the U.S. invaded. The Iraqis "buried a lot of things," he said, as for moving the WMDs to a friendly neighbor: "I guess some day we'll know."

When Rumsfeld was aske from the crowd about what's ahead in the war on terror, he replied that "communications" on our side needs to be strengthened: "Today's global, 24-hour media presents new challenges for a government that operates on a -- on a very different schedule. Al Qaeda's second-in-command, al-Zawahiri, has said that, quote, 'More than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.' This is the number two al Qaeda leader explaining to his people that it's not so much only on the battlefield today, it's in the media.

"The enemy we face has skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part, our country and our government have not yet completed the adjustments that will be necessary. The enemy is fast, with headline-grabbing attacks. By doctoring photographs, lying to the media, being trained to allege torture in their training manuals, the enemy successfully manipulates the free world's press, a press that they would never allow to be free -- and they do so purposefully to intimidate and break the will of free people. We need to understand the ruthlessness, the skillfulness of this enemy."

Another audience member aske about reports of Saddam getting rid of his WMDs. Rumsfeld answered:

"There are reports from people, Iraqis, that that happened – that things were moved out of Iraq just prior to the military action. I can't prove that it happened. I can't prove that it did not happen. I guess that some day we'll know.

"We also know that the Iraqis buried a lot of things. They buried complete jet aircraft. I can't quite imagine that -- when you think of what they cost and how easily they're damaged -- to bury them in the ground takes a certain mentality. (Laughter.) What else they may have buried I don't know."

How will we ever go on without Rummy offering us brilliant flashes of insight like:

"You go to war with the army you have and not the army you want."

"What do you mean there has been widespread vandalism and theft in the fall of Baghdad? All I have seen is one man stealing a lamp which the media replays hundreds of times as if more than one person did anything wrong."

[Followed by, to paraphrase:] "You imply that the greatest museums of Iraq have been sacked. You also imply that the area now called Baghdad is the historical seat of human civilization. But these people are Muslims so how can they have any culture to steal?"

"You say [this] is wrong. But how will we know that at some point in the distant future, it won't seem right?"