It didn’t happen

by Ted on April 21, 2004

From today’s Washington Post:

The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that President Bush had decided to invade Iraq.

At issue was a passage in Woodward’s “Plan of Attack,” an account published this week of Bush’s decision making about the war, quoting Rumsfeld as telling Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, in January 2003 that he could “take that to the bank” that the invasion would happen…

Woodward supplied his own transcript showing that Rumsfeld told him on Oct. 23, 2003: “I remember meeting with the vice president and I think Dick Myers 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.”

We are hearing about this because the Administration directly contradicted a celebrity Post reporter about a hot news story, and the reporter kept his own records.

What haven’t we heard about?

UPDATE: Some insightful commentary on this story, and Woodward generally, from Ranting Profs.

{ 5 comments }

1

ogged 04.21.04 at 5:33 pm

The unknown unknowns, of course.

2

JP 04.21.04 at 6:06 pm

What a bunch of idiots. Woodward seemed really pissed about this on Charlie Rose last night. Not a good guy to cross…

3

Robin Green 04.21.04 at 8:38 pm

Ranting Profs says:

“I’m sure it improves his cachet to be a guy who was arguing with the President in the Oval Office. But should a reporter really be arguing the point while conducting an interview? It struck me as odd.”

Clearly he’s never listened to John Humphreys.

4

Sebastian Holsclaw 04.22.04 at 6:24 am

And what does Woodward say about this….

5

blair berbert 04.24.04 at 1:05 am

Almost immediately before reading this article in the Washington Post, I came across an article (NY Times, I think) detailing Chinese efforts to censor Cheney’s recent speech to University students there. The standing administration was sharply critical of this, obviously. I think I’d find the irony quite delicious if it didn’t leave such a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

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