"Yesterday on PBS’ Newshour, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said no administration official made any predictions about the length or cost of the war in Iraq:
I was very careful. I never predicted any number of deaths or the cost or the length because I’ve looked at a lot of wars, and anyone who tries to do that is going to find themselves wrong, flat wrong…I don’t know anybody who had any reasonable expectations about the number or the length of the war or the cost of the war. I just don’t — no one I know went out and said these are how those three metrics ought to be considered. And you can take it to the bank.
The truth is, Rumsfeld and other top administration officials made predictions on all three metrics. You can take that to the bank –
Length:
Rumsfeld, : “It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
Cheney, 3/16/03: “I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months“
Cost:
Daniels, 12/30/02: “The administration’s top budget [Mitch Daniels] official estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion… Mr. Daniels declined to explain how budget officials had reached the $50 billion to $60 billion range for war costs…” [New York Times, 12/31/02]
Casualties:
ummm ... yeah.Q: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
Cheney: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. [Meet the Press, 3/16/03]"
2 comments:
Okay, so I killed two comments on this today that called me a copycat. Both had this link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/05/225.html
Just to clarify, this isn't a book report or a job, so I can copy anyone's shit from anywhere and fuck anyone that doesn't want to read it. Sure I steal ideas from other blogs, but who doesn't? The way it works as far as I'm concerned is that we're all ranting about the same shit, it's just a question of who has the better snark. Personally, I'm just doing this to keep myself informed and to hopefully get some others interested in paying better attention to the world around us. If that makes me a plagarist or a copycat, who gives a fuck? I'm not making any money off of this(note the lack of ads) and I never intended to. The only reason the blog is even open to the public is so that my reader list is broader than the five people I know that actually read it often. I do that to get more comments on each topic and as you can tell, I don't even get that very often. Sure I'd love it if I had more than a few hundred hits a week, but then again if I did, I'd probably have some ads or try to use the blog for something more worthwhile. So back off please, thanks.
UPDATE, okay so I looked at the post that the Anonymous bitcher put and get this, it's a copy too. Apparently this guy got aggravated because we both linked to the same story from ThinkProgress.com. So a copycat is getting on my case for being a copycat, hilarious.
Post a Comment