Rumsfeld responded first by (falsely) denying that
he had said what McGovern said he said about the WMD caches. The Defense
Secretary then pulled out an old canard that supposedly proved a
Hussein-al-Qaeda connection by noting that Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi had spent time in Baghdad.
"Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period,"
Rumsfeld said. "That is a fact."
Some news coverage of the Atlanta confrontation,
such as the clip on NBC's Nightly News, ended with that Rumsfeld
statement, leaving his Zarqawi point unchallenged.
However, CNN and other news outlets did carry a
fuller version, in which McGovern put Rumsfeld's claim in context:
"Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein
had no rule. That's also ..."
"Yes," McGovern said, "when he needed to go to the
hospital. Come on, these people aren't idiots. They know the story."
Not Trustworthy
But Rumsfeld's Zarqawi-in-Baghdad line demonstrates
why the Bush administration still deserves no trust on Iraq.
While superficially the Zarqawi-in-Baghdad line may
sound like damning evidence against Iraq, it actually means almost
nothing since there's no proof that Hussein's government was aware of
Zarqawi's presence, let alone collaborated with him.
By this Rummy logic, the U.S. military should have
invaded Florida and jailed its governor, Jeb Bush, because terrorist
Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers lived in the state for more than
a year before the attacks. Some even attended Florida flight schools.
But no administration official has ever accused Jeb
Bush of complicity in the 9/11 attacks just because Atta operated under
the nose of George W. Bush's younger brother.
Yet, Rumsfeld justifies invading a nation halfway
around the world because its government failed to detect a then-obscure
terrorist getting medical treatment in a hospital.
(Following this Rummy logic further, one would have
to conclude that the U.S. occupation forces and the new Iraqi government
are now colluding with Zarqawi because he has operated in and around
Baghdad for the past three years without being caught.)
Despite the irrationality behind the
administration's Zarqawi-in-Baghdad argument, it has rarely been
challenged by major U.S. news outlets. After the May 4 confrontation,
the most any U.S. news outlet did was play McGovern's retort without
further explanation or comment.
Besides not holding the Bush administration
accountable for these sorts of Iraq War deceptions, the U.S. news media
often goes on the offensive against Bush's critics, painting them as
either unbalanced or vengeful.
For instance, after the exchange in Atlanta,
McGovern faced questions from CNN anchor Paula Zahn about the CIA
veteran's motives.
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