Programming Update

When you change your story after the fact, contradictions and inconsistencies are likely to emerge. Earlier, I pointed out a few in Tony Blair’s testimony before the House of Commons. Today, Rumsfeld said this:

“The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit [of weapons of mass destruction]. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light — through the prism of our experience on 9-11.”

I instantly thought that was an outrageous statement, but I didn’t realize quite how much so until Rick in Davis pointed it out. Rick is co-blogger of at The Likely Story, a new blog that you should definitely check out.

Rick notes that on May 6th, Bush first appended “Program” to “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (see my posts here and here), saying

“I’m not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein — because he had a weapons program.”

But, as Rick notes, either they merely saw existing weapons in a new light (Rumsfeld) or Iraq had actual programs to produce new weapons (Bush). What to conclude from this contradiction about Rumsfeld’s opinion of Bush’s position? Go read Rick’s entire post.

AB