Friday, May 07, 2004

Full text: Rumsfeld in the House: Deputy head of US Central Command identifies the problem at the Abu Ghrayb prison:
"L. SMITH: Yes, sir. In fact, special attention has been paid to Abu Ghraib. They now have probably the best dining facility around. I'm not sure that they have a PX yet, which was one of their complaints." And Rumsfeld said this in passing:
"RUMSFELD: We've released 31,000 out of 43,000 that were detained." Imagine: 43,000 Iraqis detained. If you compare that to the size of the US population, it is in the millions. And when all fails, a politician can always resort to demagogic patriotism: Rumsfeld was asked about those who committed torture, and he tells them (as if he was being asked about the American people or the American society):
"We've got wonderful people in this country. We're not an evil society. There's not something bad about America. America is not what's wrong with the world."