During the Bush administration's push to convince the media and the American people that we should invade Iraq, there were many carefully planned strategies used by Bush's team to lie us into that deadly and unthinkable war. One such tactic was putting his inner circle on TV to spread propaganda about Iraq's supposed nuclear program and chemical weapons that were poised to be dropped on Cleveland or Hackensack at any time at all. Condoleezza Rice has the distinction of spreading a sentence that was so egregious, it now lives in infamy.
Here's what she told Wolf Blitzer and CNN, on Sepember 8, 2002:
"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon," she told me. "And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device."
Dr. Rice then said something that was ominous and made headlines around the world.
"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
This was designed to scare the American people into thinking that if we don't take preemptive action right away then not even Jack Bauer will be able to save you. She helped sell a disastrous war with Iraq that should never have happened since they never attacked us. Flash forward eleven years and she's in the private sector trying to pick up as much speaking engagement money as she can and so she grabbed a chance to deliver the commencement address at Rutgers University for a tidy sum of 35,000 dollars.
Many of the students were not impressed and protested her appearance there because of her role in the Iraq war and she decided to bow out of the speech.
(AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War.
Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation to speak at the graduation.
"Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families," Rice said. "Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time."
The school's board of governors had voted to pay $35,000 to the former secretary of state under President George W. Bush and national security adviser for her appearance at the May 18 ceremony. Rutgers was also planning to bestow Rice with an honorary doctorate.
But some students and faculty at New Jersey's flagship university had protested, staging sit-ins and saying Rice bore some responsibility for the Iraq War as a member of the Bush administration. Barchi and other school leaders had resisted the calls to disinvite Rice, saying the university
__In her statement, Rice defended her record, saying that she was honored to serve her country and that she had "defended America's belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas." But she said she didn't want to detract from the spirit of the commencement ceremony.
The student body has a right to protest. I don't remember conservatives being outraged that Notre Dame university students protested President Obama's commencement speech there.
Sometimes even conservatives can't rewrite history into what they would like it to be and Condi is paying a small price here for pushing America into an unthinkable war that has taken almost five thousand lives of our troops as well as so many innocent Iraqi's. She is currently working at Stanford so I'd say she's doing quite well actually.
(Working to get the audio working on the video. It's very old.)
