The Rumsfeld story - front page of today's Guardian was reported on this blog months ago. Most recently six days ago, as on this page below (mike 3/5/03) and much much earlier (is in archives somewhere). The story was also in Private Eye about a year ago and even swissinfo reported it in back in February.

Clear example of the kind of automated censorship of the press that is required to engineer consent - since anybody with an internet connection and a curious nature could have written the Guardian story above a year ago. What the hell is their news team doing all day?

Maybe tomorrow we'll see this picture tomorrow



with an account of how he once,at his own request met Saddam Hussein. Whom the American's were supporting against Iraq, because of the location of "critical oil facilities" there (Reagan's phrase not mine...) despite their knowledge of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. Rumsfeld knew about the use of chemical weapons, since he mentioned it to Tariq Aziz when they met, but he bottled it in his ninety minute meeting with Saddam - prefering instead to concentrate on possible US finance for an oil pipeline through Jordan. The material here is incredible, it beggars belief that this stuff is out there and yet no one seems to pay it any attention - for instance this. The NSDD signed by Reagan, and linked above, spells out the reasons why the US is interested in Iraq and there's no reason to think anything has changed. There are also some interesting docs about the US UN delegation reaction to Iran's tabled motion condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons - some changes were made at the request of Iraq. It's all there, if you look you'll see.

Another future headline perhaps - Rumsfeld's connection to the Moonie cult and North Korea.