(illustration by DonkeyHotey)
From MSNBC:
President George W. Bush was wrong to try to build democracy in Iraq, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a recent interview, marking a striking admission from a key player behind the 2003 U.S. invasion.
In an interview with British newspaper The Times, Rumsfeld said that efforts to oust Saddam Hussein and replace his tyrannical regime with democracy were unworkable, and that he had concerns about the plan from the beginning.
“I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories,” Rumsfeld told The Times. “The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words.”
http://www.msnbc.com/...
Sorry, Donald - but history is not going to exonerate you at this late date. Besides Cheney, you were chief accomplice number one. Why you are now coming out against the invasion is anyone's guess, but your fate is sealed.
Complete Times interview with Dumbsfeld can be found here:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/...
Update 1:
From the comments, Bob Johnson has found a cached article from 2003:
In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. 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.
...
For example, 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."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/...
Update 2:
A killer comment from Laurel in CA:
Not an apology, and not credible.
This statement is self-serving goat manure.
An APOLOGY would look like this: "I played a major role in the run-up to and conduct of the Iraq war, and I was wrong. i'm deeply sorry for my words and actions that instigated this war, from misleading intelligence to wildly unrealistic cost estimates. I regret even more the outcomes of that war - the human cost in death and injury not just to Americans but to the Iraqi people, and in the economic and social devastation that followed. I am deeply ashamed of my part in the creation, conduct, and aftermath of this war."
But no one in the Bush-Cheney leadership will ever admit to their complicity in war crimes.
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