>> Former Secretary of State Don Rumsfeld, of course, the Secretary of State
under the Bush administration has died. He has passed away from natural causes.
His family has released a statement in regard to his death. And while some may feel that it
is not appropriate to say negative things about individuals upon their passing.
I am not in any way interested in lying to my audience about what Don Rumsfeld stood for.
How he helped to craft a narrative that
encouraged Americans to support two incredibly disastrous wars. And his role in what was referred
to as enhanced interrogation when in reality was nothing more than brutal torture of detainees.
So let me give you the details. Let's do the obit. Let's talk about who Don Rumsfeld was.
Rumsfeld was known for his unwavering support for the US invasion of Iraq following September 11th,
the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, aka torture,
and of course prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.
That was a massive scandal at the time. Those photos are absolutely
hideous. They were photos of the degrading demeaning treatment of the detainees in Abu
Ghraib. It was a giant scandal at the time, and I'm honestly curious whether it would
be considered a scandal if it were to happen today considering how much things have devolved.
Not only domestically, but even when it comes to foreign policy. The Bush years were absolutely
awful when it came to foreign policy. But the Obama administration came in and essentially
conducted a continuation of Bush era foreign policies, and even
expanded the use of drone strikes when it comes to the war in the Middle East.
So something to keep in mind as we give you the details. So despite the fact that Al Qaeda was
in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld proposed military action against Iraq just four days after September 11th.
And that's according to Robert Draper's book, To Start A War. Now that was one
of the most frustrating parts of the Bush era, because the American people were bamboozled.
They were lied to. So many were under the assumption that Saddam Hussein and
Iraq had something to do with September 11th. What Don Rumsfeld did was, he saw
this tragic event in the United States where thousands of Americans died.
He saw that as an opportunity to manufacture consent for a war that we should not have started.
And he started that war by arguing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Ten years
ago, ABC News interviewed him and asked him about that very statement and how it actually ended up
not being true at all. Let's watch. >> You believed absolutely,
categorically, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
>> I don't do a lot of things categorically. Anyone who's been around intelligence gathering
knows that it can be wrong. Colin Powell has been around for longer than anybody in terms of-.
>> He said he was devastated- >> Because he was, everyone was.
But my Lord, he's the guy who had more experience than anyone else.
He worked hard with George Tennant, with Condi Rice. He prepared his speech,
he went up to the UN. He made his case, and he wasn't lying. The idea that he was lying
or duped is nonsense. He believed it,
our military believed it. Our military got chemical weapons suits on to protect them.
>> But you were wrong. >> My goodness, the
intelligence was certainly wrong. >> If you had known he did
not have them. >> I didn't know.
>> If you had. >> I didn't.
>> If you had, >> I have no idea.
I have no idea. What you know today, can help you learn things you are thinking about tomorrow.
It can't help you with things you were thinking back then, back then was reasonable confidence
that he had this weapons. >>
The argument that there was reasonable confidence that there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq isn't good enough. Because at the time there were members
of the intelligence community that questioned the narrative of, weapons of mass destruction.
But those concerns, anything that conflicted with the narrative that the Bush administration was
trying to craft was ignored, was absolutely neglected, ignored brushed to the side.
And at that moment in the United States decided to do a pre-emptive war
in 2003. That pre-emptive war has been a disaster as we know,
we've spent trillions of dollars not just in Iraq but also in Afghanistan.
Again enhanced interrogation methods that were used when it came to detainees
related to those conflicts, absolutely brutal and horrifying. We broke
all sorts of international laws, conducted war crimes. The Bush administration also conducted
warrantless surveillance and spying on Americans. Absolutely awful. Absolutely
awful. You read these obituaries when government officials pass away, and I get it,
they talk about how many children they had and how wonderful they were to their families.
But what about the families who lost their children as a result of these drone strikes? Or
what about the families whose homes, and neighborhoods were destroyed,
their livelihoods were destroyed, their way of life was destroyed.
Thanks to the Bush administration, thanks to the help of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld,
and again Manufacturing Consent for a war that we should not have been in.
He famously, by the way, offered rosy assessments
of how the war in Iraq would proceed and offered little introspection for the ensuing tragedy and
fallout. The Gulf War in the 1990s, lasted five days on the ground. I can tell you,
if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days or five weeks or five months, he said,
but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that, he predicted in 2002.
So he intentionally underestimated the impact of starting that pre-emptive war. He
made decisions along with other Bush Administration officials based on
incredibly faulty intel. Didn't even wanna wait to verify that intelligence regarding
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And so this is it. This is his legacy. It doesn't just go away
because he's died of natural causes, and he died at a pretty old age.
He lived a long life. In November of 2002, Rumsfeld also signed off on the
Department of Defense use of tactics against detainees in Guantanamo Bay which remains open.
That included deprivation of light, forcible
stripping, the use of phobias such as dogs and stress positions for up to four hours.
Along with his signature, he wrote a note saying quote, I stand for eight to ten hours a day.
Why is standing limited to four hours? Mind you, these are detainees many of whom hadn't even been
charged with anything yet. Okay, there are some detainees in Guantanamo Bay right now as we speak,
who are actually innocent, have not been charged with anything,
the US government acknowledges that they're innocent but they're still detained.
Because we created a problem and we don't know how to end it. We don't know what to
do with these detainees who I would argue, understandably are furious at
what the United States has done to them. So we can't lie about the massive role
that Donald Rumsfeld played in these awful foreign policy decisions that are still
impacting the people of Iraq and Afghanistan today and certainly are impacting Americans.
As so much of our finite resources go toward conflicts that we should have never been in
the first place. Want to read a statement from the family of Donald Rumsfeld and then we'll wrap this
up. They write, it is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld,
an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather at 88.
He was surrounded by family in his beloved
home in New Mexico. So you can read the rest for yourselves. I wanted to
offer my condolences to his family, because regardless of how I feel about Don Rumsfeld,
I'm sure that his family loved him and I'm sure that today is a difficult day for them.
But we should also be considerate of the endless difficult days that
people in the Middle East have suffered as a result of decisions made
by our government, especially when Don Rumsfeld was Secretary of State.