Rumsfeld Can’t Recall Whether He Approved Crooked Boeing Contract
Rumsfeld Can’t Recall Whether He Approved Crooked Boeing Contract
On June 7, the Pentagon’s Inspector General revealed that the department had signed off on a deal with Boeing that cheated taxpayers out of billions:
Top U.S. weapons buyers bypassed normal procedures in an “inappropriate” rush to acquire $23.5 billion of Boeing Co. aircraft as refueling planes, the Pentagon’s chief inspector said Tuesday.
Congress killed the deal last year after Darleen Druyun, the Air Force’s ex-No. 2 weapons purchaser, pleaded guilty to negotiating a $250,000-a-year job at Boeing while still overseeing billions in the company’s Air Force contracts.
[Snip]
Schmitz said his investigation showed other officials at the Air Force, Pentagon and White House, as well as members of Congress, helped craft a deal that one Pentagon official in August 2002 described as “a bailout for Boeing.”
Interviews by the IG staff indicate that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld supported the crooked Boeing contract. Asked about his involvement in the deal at a press conference today, Rumsfeld said he couldn’t recall if he had approved it or not:
QUESTION: And can you speak to your role in approving that deal? There is some contradiction within that report about whether you were actively involved in making the decision to proceed with that deal or whether that decision was left up to Undersecretary Aldridge.
RUMSFELD: And this is in this report?
QUESTION: Yes, and in the testimony, the inspector general’s staff said that they interviewed you and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and that their impression was, or what they understood from those interviews was that you had let Aldridge make that decision and then supported it. I’m wondering if you can give us your recollection of this.
RUMSFELD: I’d have to go back and read this and then talk to the people involved to refresh myself.
Isn’t that convenient.
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Let me go back and check to make sure I talk to everyone and tell them I was not involved and then make sure all documents have my name edited from them and then I will be in a position to answer your question – I think this was the real quote.
June 14th, 2005 at 4:46 pmIt’s like the movie “Groundhog’s Day”…
June 14th, 2005 at 4:51 pmWhen did the answer “I don’t remember” become OK? Didn’t it use to be accompanied by scorn & derision. Didn’t it used to be synonomous with “I’ve got something to hide & I’m going to hide it”?
Comparisons to this administration & how the Clinton’s were treated are apalling.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:22 pmWell he could say something insightful such as What is the definition of “is”.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:38 pmPull your head out Brett, Bill’s got nothing to do with it.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:39 pmThat’s right cause poster boy Bill would never allow such shenanigans on his watch. Fair enough, take the previous admin out of the picture. If ol’ Rummy is in the wrong then he gets what he gets. But that’s awful idealistic of us isn’t it. Nothing much will happen, if anything, the right will claim the left is playing partisan politics and act as apologists. The left will scream whitewash. Now just for fun swap the words left and right. Of course you’ll have to delete the part about the left apologizing. The right only apologizes because it/we have allowed ourselves to be placed in the moral conondrum of politics with the image of taking the moral high road. The left doesn’t apologize because they, in general and quite dillusionally, think they are correct. Why be indignant? Business as usual eh?
June 14th, 2005 at 5:57 pmI need to go find my brain, er, I mean my talking points! Golly-geez-oh-pete.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:58 pmwhy the heck doesn’t the reporter follow up?
“ok mr rumsfeld, when can we expect you to check those documents and refresh your memory? when can we expect your answer? what day? should we ask you daily to keep reminding you? publish it on page A1 every day to be sure you remember? Mention it every night on prime time MSM to make sure someone sees it and reminds you?”
what meek reporters.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:59 pmBecause the reporters gave him a pass. For now. I’m NO fan of MSM but this would have been an excellent chance to hem him up and I am surprised they passed on him.
June 14th, 2005 at 6:02 pmDon’t you feel proud Brett?
June 14th, 2005 at 6:03 pmLook at Rumsfelds lack of knowledge and memory this way…If you are ever asked a question you don’t want to answer, do a rummy!
Tell the one who asks the hard question, “well, I’d like to plead the rummy, the bushie and the condi”.
June 14th, 2005 at 6:14 pmProud of?
June 14th, 2005 at 6:15 pmPlead the rummy. That’s funny. As far as the rest, be careful since we all live in glass houses.
June 14th, 2005 at 6:18 pmHey can I miss a day of work and not call in then later claim I had the rummy
Perhaps this quote from one of his underlings will help refresh Secretary Rumsfeld’s memory:
“My comments were brought to you by the Boeing Company.”
June 14th, 2005 at 7:02 pm- Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita, January 31, 2003.
Sounds like a touch of Alzheimer’s disease for old rummy. That explains no exit plan, hell he can’t remember where he is at let alone how to get home.
June 14th, 2005 at 7:24 pmbrett,
Please provide us with some examples of issues that the right has been correct on and conversely that the left has been incorrect on. We can start the debate from each of our respective realities and see who comes up with the most evidence to support our positions.
June 14th, 2005 at 8:43 pmBrett,
We try not to bring up Clinton’s Johnson on this blog. I think you want to go to Free Republic.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:55 pmIf I were Donald Rumsfeld, I wouldn’t want to remember anything I’ve done or said. Come time for the war crimes trials, he won’t remember a thing.
June 14th, 2005 at 11:06 pmRe: Schmitz said his investigation showed other officials
Interesting to note that this Schmitz guy, the inspector
June 15th, 2005 at 2:18 amgeneral at the DoD, is the brother of Mary Kay Letourneau. Their father was the most right wing nut ever in the House…even looked for and moved into Joseph McCarthy’s old D.C. house.
Hey, it’s a trend, leave the guy alone. If Bill O’Rreilly and the head of the AARP both can “not remember” if they’re Republcans (they are), surely Don Rumsefeld can forget whether he approved a contract. One of the lesser known requirements for high political office is a sufficiently hazy memory.
Besides, this contract probably looked pretty good compared to some of the others he’d seen.
June 15th, 2005 at 9:31 amWhen did a Republican ever apologize? Seriously?
June 15th, 2005 at 11:14 amAmaziing.. they don’t recall the memo either.. same story every time they are asked a question they don’t want to answer!
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