What is the Sound of One Hand Smacking Your Forehead ... Repeatedly?

posted by The Vidiot @ 6:49 PM Permalink

Bump and UPDATE:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday he was mistaken when he stated last week that the U.S. military had stopped paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles.
[...]
"I just misstated the facts," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday.

Odd, when anyone else 'just misstated the facts' it is called lying. At best it means the Secretary of Defense doesn't know that when he calls a halt to a program, (see below quote), and it doesn't happen, and he doesn't know about it, he's out of the loop. The SecDef is out of the loop and he's in charge of the Defense Department!?

Multiple choice question:
a) Does this show him to be a liar?
b) Does this show him to be incompetent?
c) Does this show him to be evil.
d) All of the above.

Original post:

First he says this:

Rumsfeld says extremists are beating U.S. government to the punch in media war
[...]
"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we _ our country, our government _ has not adapted," he said.
[...]
Rumsfeld has often described the U.S. government as being disadvantaged by its ponderous approach to dealing with the media, and he has pushed for the U.S. military in particular to try innovative approaches to getting out its message to the Islamic world.

Then a day later he says this:

Propaganda Effort in Iraq a Mistake, Rumsfeld Says
The Defense secretary says he ordered the planting of articles to stop after learning of it, although others have said the effort continues.
[...]
In his most specific comments thus far about the information operations program, — carried out by U.S. troops and a private contractor — Rumsfeld said the U.S. military should not be paying Iraqi media to publish articles, whose origin was concealed even from the news outlets.

He said he had not been initially aware of the clandestine program, and ordered it shut down after news outlets published details of it.

"When we heard about it, we said, 'Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing,' " Rumsfeld said Friday during a taped interview on PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show."

Rumsfeld said the contractor, Lincoln Group, and commanders in Iraq were notified of the Pentagon's concerns and ended the propaganda effort.

"They stopped doing that," he said.
[...]
"Psy-ops is restricted by both [Defense Department] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets," says the directive, dated Oct. 30, 2003, and signed by Rumsfeld.

Well OK then! But of course then there's this:

One person familiar with Lincoln Group's operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation, said the program in Iraq was still active as of a week ago.

Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said during a Dec. 16 news conference — more than two weeks after the existence of the operation was revealed — that it had not been shut down.

Liars.