Rumsfeld Points Finger at CIA, UN

From this Sunday's Late Edition on CNN: BLITZER: Here is the question that a lot of people want you to answer. Do you as the defense secretary owe the American people an apology for all that bad intelligence? RUMSFELD: Why would the Defense Department -- it's the intelligence community that made the intelligence. It was CIA and... BLITZER: But the DIA had an intelligence operation. And you had a separate intelligence operation that Doug Feith, one of your top aides, was running. RUMSFELD: It was not a separate intelligence organization. You've been reading the press too long. BLITZER: What is the inspector general investigating now as far as Doug Feith and his intelligence operation? RUMSFELD: I really don't know. The buck stops where? BLITZER: That's why the U.S. went to war: the WMD and the Iraq- Al Qaida connection that you alleged. RUMSFELD: The reason the United States went to war, the president has announced and said it repeatedly. There were 17 resolutions in the U.N. that were ignored by Saddam Hussein. Our planes were being shot at on a regular basis in the Operation Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch. Saddam Hussein was giving $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. Iraq was on the terrorist list. Iraq had used chemical weapons against its own people and its neighbors. Of course history shows the President went to war despite the United Nations, not because of it. Rumsfeld knows all about the chemical weapons charges because those were the days he could be seen shaking hands with Saddam. And as far as the planes being shot at it's an illustration of how impotent Iraq was before the invasion. Over 40,000 US sorties were flown in Iraq during the 90's. Number of planes Saddam shot down? None.