RUSH: I want you to hear some of this Donald Rumsfeld with Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington. Yesterday afternoon on her show they’re having a discussion about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and intelligence.
MITCHELL: That intelligence unit, that analysis unit in the Pentagon was stovepiping information, intelligence information.
RUMSFELD: What’s that mean, stovepiping?
MITCHELL: Mr. Secretary, you know what stovepiping means.
RUMSFELD: I don’t know the context you’re using.
MITCHELL: It was keeping intelligence information away from other units, not permitting people in CIA —
RUMSFELD: Oh, not at all. As a matter of fact — (crosstalk)
MITCHELL: — not permitting Colin Powell to know all of the factors.
RUMSFELD: Oh, that’s not true. That is factually not true.
RUSH: Oh, how about this? So she’s taking up for Colin Powell. So apparently Colin Powell’s been running around saying the weapons of mass destruction, we aren’t allowed to see the intelligence, it was being stovepiped, we weren’t allowed to see it. He’s trying to do everything he can to distance himself ’cause they sent him up there, if you recall, to do the slide show on the weapons of mass destruction. He was profoundly embarrassed by that. The ruling class shunned him a bit. So he’s trying to blame it on Rumsfeld and others for stovepiping it. Rumsfeld said, ‘That’s factually not true.’ It isn’t true. It did not happen. She says…
MITCHELL: You don’t take any responsibility —
RUMSFELD: For what?
MITCHELL: — any responsibility for the fact that information was the — there was misleading information that got to Colin Powell and other —
RUMSFELD: Absolutely not.
MITCHELL: — before that UN presentation —
RUMSFELD: Absolutely not.
MITCHELL: — on weapons of mass destruction?
RUMSFELD: Colin Powell probably had more experience dealing with intelligence products than anyone in the government who was at a senior level. More than George Tenet.
RUSH: Oh, this is fascinating. So Powell’s been running around telling everybody that nobody told him, they made a fool out of him sending him up there and Rumsfeld’s not falling for it. And so she says, ‘You have written that the media image of Colin Powell battling the forces of unilateralism, conservatism, may have been beneficial to Powell in some circles, but it doesn’t jibe with reality. The reality was that Powell tended not to speak out at NSC or principals meetings in strong opposition to the views of the president or his colleagues.’
RUMSFELD: That’s my recollection of the meetings. He was very professional in his handling, and he’s a fine man, I enjoyed working with him.
MITCHELL: You weren’t aware of his opposition to the war?
RUMSFELD: Not in any meetings I attended at the NSC level or even in our lunches that he was. I just didn’t ever hear that. That’s a fact.
MITCHELL: You have also written —
RUMSFELD: Or I wouldn’t have written it.
RUSH: So, fascinating, isn’t it here? Look at what Andrea Mitchell’s believed all these years now, and I’m sure a lot of other Drive-By Media people have believed. So she’s talking to Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld says, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. He never said a word in protest of the war. He never said one time he was against it. I wouldn’t have written it if he had.’ This is fascinating stuff, folks. Yeah. Huh. What do I make of it? Haven’t I pretty much told you what I make of it? It sounds to me like somebody’s been in big CYA mode here for a couple years, the cover’s been blown!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Boy, it’s amazing how Colin Powell didn’t get the information. Remember in 1998 we had all these sound bites of Democrats who believed that when Clinton told ’em they had weapons of mass destruction, they might have to do something about Saddam? And we heard about it in the 2000s, and they sent Powell up to do the slide show. Apparently he’s been telling people that he didn’t know anything about it and that they lied to him and he was totally opposed to the war, and Rumsfeld, when told about this, said, ‘Huh? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ (laughing) What else has he been saying?