“SEC. RUMSFELD: Let me go back to your question about sectarian violence. I may not have answered the last half of it as fully as I would like. Needless to say, any time there’s violence, sectarian or otherwise, it’s something that one has to be concerned about and oppose and attempt to do something about.

There has been sectarian violence in that part of the world for decades. And I think the important thing to do is for us to be concerned about it and for General Casey and his folks to work on it, and for the political process to go forward in a way that it would mute it and minimize it.

I think we also have to recognize that there’s criminal elements at work here, and it’s not trivial. It’s fairly significant. And I would add that it ought to be put in context. Think back. There — I don’t know whether the number’s for sure 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 dead Iraqi people, men, women and children, filling mass graves in that country.

And so it’s — to isolate out violence today and say, “Oh, my goodness, there’s violence today; isn’t that different” — which you did not do, of course, but I’m stating it myself — would be out of context, because in fact there’s been incredible violence in that country for year after year after year. And that does not minimize what’s taking place today, but at least it puts it in a broader context and — one would think.

Yes?”

[U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Transcript]

Translation:

Saddam was a bad man. Who murdered lots of people especially the Kurds and the marsh Arabs. That’s after they were stupid enough to believe us and rose against him at our urging. Don’t ask me how many were murdered I don’t know, or care.

Here’s what Rummy (who was a flight instructor and never saw any action) meant but didn’t actually say out loud:

“We have 133,000 US troops in theater. We’re losing what little credibility we ever had. When all hell breaks loose they’re the meat in the grinder with no way out. They’re the meat in the grinder because they’ve no way out and that army I’ve got positioned at the choke point isn’t going to be able to do a damned thing for them. I don’t have any plan for victory so I’m going to stand here and ignore what the rising tide of sectarian violence actually means. It’s far more satisfying to point out that Saddam was a mass murderer and I refrain from mentioning that I personally sold him some of what he needed to do that.

I’m not going to talk about the results of my failed cynical bloodthirsty blundering empire building because I’m doing a heck of a job and anyway its all your fault.”

Here’s part of a list I compiled today March 8th:

The remainder of this article is “below the fold” :

BAGHDAD
About 50 employees of the Al-Rawafed security who provide security services to the Iraqna mobile telecommunications company were abducted from by gunmen wearing Iraqi police uniforms, a security source said.
The gunmen attacked the company’s headquarter in the Al-Zayouna area [east Baghdad] disarmed the employees and took them away at gunpoint. As well as abducting the security men the raiders seized a large quantity of weapons and a considerable amount of money. Police said thee were no foreigners among those kidnapped.
Mohammed Hasan Al-Alawi [the general manager of a gas company] escaped an assasination attempt by unidentified gunmen who opened fire on his car early this morning. His driver was very seriously wounded.
Major General Hekmat Mousa’s house came under attack this morning. Mousa is the Interior Ministry’s Undersecretary for Police Affairs. Two Iraqi policemen were killed and another two severely wounded in the attack.
BASRA
A Danish soldier was injured when the convoy he was riding in was attacked in Qarnah.
KIRKUK [AL-QADESIA]
Dead body discoverd [head shot - mfi.]
KIRKUK [DAGOUG]
A bomb exploded in a car belonging to a member of the Dagoug town council, [Dagoug is in the southern sector of the city - mfi.] He survived uninjured.
KIRKUK [IRBIL]
Police 1st lieutenant Mahir Ali Hussein was injured in a drive by shooting on the on the Kirkuk-Hwaija-Manzelah road his driver Mousa Hameed Hussein was killed.
MOSUL
Four civilians were caught in the crossfire during a running gun battle in Al-Zahra between police and gunmen and wounded.
TAL-AFAR
One US Soldier was killed and four others were injured Wednesday by a roadside bomb.

Now let’s see in case you hadn’t noticed Rummy’s just re-written the “pottery barn” principle. In his opinion Iraq was a mess before the shock, awe, invasion, and calculated American and British attempts to foment a civil war so there’s no real harm done.

“It was broke before so I’m not paying for it.”

He’s certainly not going to take responsibility for the pack of lies that he and his cohorts including Colin Powell told. He’s hoping that nobody’ll notice that not thinking about how these “decades” of “incredible” [which is another Rummy lie as anybody who knows even a little about Iraq’s history will point out - mfi ] sectarian violence might make Iraq a less than welcoming place to invaders. After all no reasonable person could ever possibly suspect that nothing unites a people like a bunch of murderous thugs barging their way into their country.

Shorter Rummy

“And anyway if anybody’s really to blame it’s Wolfie Wolfie convinced me that Gen. Eric K. Shinseki was completely wrong about everything and as Wolfie is a renowned thinker and military expert and knows so much about the place that he was able to assure me that Iraq had no holy Cities, like oh say ….. Kerbala, Najaf, Samarra, well I believed him of course.

Not my fault.

Update: Hat-tip to reader Grania for this from Huffington Post.

“Listening to the Bush administration’s increasingly ridiculous attempts to spin the disastrous reality on the ground in Iraq, I’m wondering if they’ve hired the venerable messaging team of Ionesco, Beckett, and Genet. The theater of war meets the theater of the absurd.

Don Rumsfeld is the lead absurdist (and we’ll get to him in a minute).

But let’s start with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, and, on the heels of the recent outbursts of sectarian violence that has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war, declared: “I’d say things are going well. I wouldn’t put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they’re going very, very well from everything you look at.” the remainder of the HuffPo article is here.