I’d blog this morning about the Pentagon excising some of Donald Rumsfeld’s words in a transcript of a discussion with Bob Woodward about the planning for war (even though the quotes have already appeared in Woodward’s recent book); but this administration has censored and excised so much information since day one that it’s not really news. From websites to public statements to memos, the Bush administration has been very careful to snip out anything that they think could come back to haunt them… the problem is that they do it so obviously that the very act of editing haunts them.
What’s funniest about this specific time is that other people have the transcript, most notably Bob Woodward. Did the Pentagon think that no one would see it?
Well, the entire excised part was published this morning in the Washington Post, and I present it here for your edification (and just to piss off the Bush administration further).
The Pentagon removed the following text from Bob Woodward’s Oct. 23 interview with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld before posting the transcript on the Web:
Question: Because these countries, Jordan particularly, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait needless to say made giant commitments and you know hung it all out and I think there are times in the last week where I think March 14th the Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar came up here to talk to you because he was worried. I think he had seen the President, that we weren’t going to go. You recall that?
Rumsfeld: I met with him on occasion.
Q: And I think the President said don’t start — not you.
Rumsfeld: Have you met with the Vice President? You’re not going to meet with the Vice President are you?
Q: Well I hope so.
Rumsfeld: I doubt it.
Q: You know better than I.
Rumsfeld: I remember meeting with the Vice President and I think [Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and I met with a foreign dignitary at one point and looked him in the eye and said you can count on this. In other words at some point we had had enough of a signal from the President that we were able to look a foreign dignitary in the eye and say you can take that to the bank this is going to happen.
Q: Do you remember when that was?
Rumsfeld: I do not. But I can’t tell you who it was but I remember it was the Vice President, Dick Myers and me.
Q: [Was] that when Myers gave the briefing to Bandar in Cheney’s office because I think you were there.
Rumsfeld: When was that?
Q: I have the date — it was in February I think or maybe it was late January.
Rumsfeld: Sounds early.
Q: Sounds early yeah. It struck me as early too and it could be later in February. I don’t have it on my list here.
Rumsfeld: We’re going to have to clean some of this up in the transcript when you publish it. We’ll give you a — I mean you just said Bandar and I didn’t agree with that so we’re going to have to — I don’t want to say who it is but you are going to have to go through that and find a way to clean up my language too.
The transcripts of Woodward’s interviews released by the Pentagon can be read at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics.
