McGovern asked about the purported tie between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Rumsfeld replied that Al- Zarqawi had been in Iraq. McGovern stated he had only been in a desolate area in the north and only went to Baghdad once to visit a hospital.
“Well, this is the first time to my knowledge in Atlanta that the public has been able to buy tickets and enter one of the events, when Bush or Cheney or someone like that is in town,” Tatum told Atlanta Progressive News.
“Normally it is by invitation only. So only people who give money to the Republican party and are hardline supporters of Bush,” Tatum said.
“This is what happened when they opened it up to the public and the people who have been locked out for the past few years get in,” Tatum said.
The tickets cost $40.00, Tatum said.
“I got mine about 2 weeks in advance, the minute I heard about it. I mean, I couldn’t believe they were going to let non-Republicans in,” Tatum said.
“The Republican crowd, they were very pro-Rumsfeld. They don’t want to hear what other people have to say. They kept telling us to shut up. One man told me as I was leaving, he said, you go home and stay at home ” Tatum recalled.
“The media coverage has been unbelievable. I never expected this. I feel like a genie has been let out of the bottle or something. It’s taken on a life of its own. Normally, we work so hard to do stuff and we get such limited coverage,” Tatum said.
“I mean, like the April first march, we worked 4 to 5 months on that, most of the coverage was really good, and the AJC said only a couple hundred people were there and they mostly interviewed this Rightwing woman from Marietta. She didn’t do any of the work and she got most of the coverage,” Tatum said.
“Hopefully, what comes out of this, the media starts talking about, well, what about the prewar intelligence? Are they saying the prewar intelligence wasn’t credible? I hope that’s where the debate starts going,” Tatum said.
“I think they all lied, I think they deliberately lied,” Tatum said. “If we all believe it, it must be true. If we all say it, and we all say it enough, and we all believe it, it must be true,” Tatum said of Rumsfeld’s insistence he didn’t lie.
“I heard a mother of a soldier who said, Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11. And I feel bad for them [the people who think that]. And I support the soldiers, but I feel heartbroken that they believe this, I want them to get the truth,” Tatum told Atlanta Progressive News.
“I screamed, You lied to the American public You lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction. You lied about Iraq having a nuclear program. You lied about Iraq having ties to Al-Qaeda. You lied about Iraq oil paying for the war. And the CIA told you that these were not credible stories but you chose to cherry pick intelligence...” Tatum recalled.
“I was out in the hall at that point. Above the roar of the boos,” she said.
“They didn’t call on us, we stood up and interrupted Rumsfeld,” she said.
“He was interrupted three times by people. One was accusing him of war crimes and torture. Another person stood there with his back to Rumsfeld and stood there the entire time with his back to him. Every 10 minutes he was interrupted. It was about an hour,” Tatum said.
Matthew Cardinale is Editor of Atlanta Progressive News. He has written previously for the Sun-Sentinel Newspaper, Shelterforce Magazine, The Advocate Magazine, The San Francisco Bay View, and the Berkeley Daily Planet Newspaper. He has also written for numerous online publications including OpEdNews, BuzzFlash, CommonDreams, AlterNet, RawStory, and TruthOut.
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