We Have Always Been At War With Iraq
Donald Rumsfeld Rewrites His Own History
by Tamara Baker

(The following column is dedicated to some dear friends of mine over on Airstrip One. You know who you are. -- TLB)

Nov. 10, 2003 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (apj.us)

Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For example, it appeared from the Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened.

-- From George Orwell's 1984

In the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said US forces would be welcomed by the Iraqi citizenry and that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Now, after both statements have been shown to be either incorrect or vastly exaggerated, Rumsfeld - with the same trademark confidence that he exuded before the war - is denying that he ever made such assertions.

... on Feb. 20, a month before the invasion, Rumsfeld fielded a question about whether Americans would be greeted as liberators if they invaded Iraq.

"Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?" Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBS' "The News Hour."

"There is no question but that they would be welcomed," Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces. "Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do."

[...]

But on Sept. 25, - a particularly bloody day in which one US soldier was killed in an ambush, eight Iraqi civilians died in a mortar strike and a member of the U.S-appointed governing council died after an assassination attempt five days earlier - Rumsfeld was asked about the surging resistance.

"Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms," Sinclair Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones said to Rumsfeld as the prelude to a question.

The defense chief quickly cut him off. "Never said that," he said. "Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said."

From The Star Banner, Nov. 9, 2003

Yessiree, folks: Donald Rumsfeld has Big Brother syndrome. The chief characteristics are a hamfisted modus operandi, a refusal to admit it when caught out, and a tendency to suppress anything that contradicts his perfect and benevolent self-image.

In the article cited above -- and why, oh why, is this not getting a tenth of the press coverage of Howard Dean's non-scandal involving the Confederate flag? (as if I didn't know!) -- we find a few more examples of Rummy the Revisionist, as well as Rummy the Linguist, telling us that "large stockpiles" is not the same as "extensive stockpiles," or that "welcomed" is not quite the same as "welcomed with open arms," or that "urgent," "mortal," and "immediate" are somehow not to be construed as "imminent."

Remember how the conservatives used to warn us about the Stalinists' habits of renaming things so that their true meanings could be concealed? I guess conservatives stopped caring about that round about the time they stopped caring about huge government budget deficits.

And just remember, folks: We have always been at war with Iraq. At least, until the Big Brothers in the Bush White House decide that we haven't.

'Nuff said.