03/27/14 03/27/14 from pacifica, this is democracy now! business is no longer exists due to being destroyed by hit crime. office that provided abortions among other services in montana has been forced to close after a vandal systematically broke or slashed practically every object and surface. we will speak with the owner,

susan cahill, of all families health care. and then the unknown known. there were one or two, or three, but there were not all of these so-called memos. they were mischaracterized as torture memos and they came not out of the bush administration, per se, but under the u.s. department of justice. >> academy award-winning documentary filmmaker errol morris talks about his new film, "the unknown known." does rumsfeld apologize for the iraq war? we will find out. all that and more coming up. to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. continues anma overseas tour in italy today where he is meeting with pope

francis for the first time. wraping up a visit to brussels, obama delivered an address criticizing russia for annexing ukraine and using what he called brute force. >> of course, ukraine is not a memo -- member of nato, in part because of its complex history with russia, nor will russia be dislodged from crimea or deterred from further escalation by military force. but with time, so long as we russiannited, the people will recognize that they cannot achieve security, prosperity, and the status they seek through brute force. >> in his remarks, president obama tried to counter russian claims of u.s. hypocrisy with what critics called a revisionist take on the war. obama says the u.s. try to work within the international system before the iraq invasion. >> russia has pointed to

america's decision to go into iraq as an example of western hypocrisy. iraq war wasat the a subject of vigorous debate, not just around the world, but in the united states as well. i participated in that debate, and i opposed our military intervention there. but even in iraq, america sought to work within the international system. we did not claim or annex iraq's territory. we did not grab its resources for our own gain. andead, we ended our work left iraq to its people. >> president obama's comments omitted the u.s. attacked iraq without security council approval and that the subsequent occupation lasted over eight years. the comments come as ukraine secured a massive bailout from the imf.

the ukrainian government will receive up to $18 billion in credits and aid in return for accepting austerity measures rejected by the ousted former president of ukraine viktor yanukovych. the philippine government has reached an historic peace deal with the country's largest muslim rebel group after decades of conflict. the agreement with the moro islamic liberation front would create an autonomous government on the southern island of mindanao. in return, the group will renounce armed struggle in its fight for self-determination. an estimated 120,000 people have died in years of fighting between the government and rebel forces. the head of the egyptian military has to down, paving the way for his candidacy and upcoming elections. general abdel fattah al-sisi led the coup that ousted the democratically elected president mohammed morsi last july, and has overseen the ensuing

crackdown that has left hundreds dead and thousands behind bars. morsi has a strong base of isi has and -- al-s strong base of support and is expected to win. on wednesday, one person was killed near cairo university in ongoing protests in the sentencing of over 500 muslim brotherhood members to death. the protest comes as 900 additional members were ordered to stand trial on charges of terrorism and murder. a new study says capital punishment is on the rise across the globe. gaughran blamed iraq for the increase in executions over the previous year. >> almost 100 more people were put to death. the countries responsible for that are largely iran and iraq. countries also resumed

executions, which was troubling, but that said, the long-term picture in terms of abolition of the death penalty is positive. over the past 20 years we see a steady decline. >> the u.s. was fifth on the list of executing countries with 39 killings. an oklahoma judge took down a law that hides information on the drugs used in lethal injections. two prisoners had sued the state to disclose the source of the drugs to be used in their executions. courtnesday, district judge patricia parrish ruled oklahoma violated the constitution by failing to disclose the name of the drug supplier, the combination of chemicals, and dosages used in executions. the rulings could delay executions in other states. players at northwestern university have won an historic victory that could change the world of college sports. on wednesday, the national labor relations board ruled players at

private colleges qualify as employees under the law and accordingly have the right to form a union. the players are not seeking a salary from the billions in ,evenue generated by the ncaa but want medical protections for concussions and other injuries, as well as guarantees on their academic scholarships. the connecticut state senate has advanced a measure that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, the nation's highest rate. the bill now goes to the state house where it is expected to pass. america has finalized a $9.3 billion settlement for selling toxic mortgage bonds to the government-backed fannie mae and freddie mac during the financial crisis. department says bank of america executed a scheme that would gladly hand of mortgages without proper checks and then turn around and sell those loans to fannie and freddie, while they reap a windfall.

fannie and freddie were stuck with huge losses and foreclose properties. bank of america has also reached a settlement in misleading investors for its takeover of merrill lynch. agreement, former ceo kenneth lewis is banned as serving as an officer or director of a public company for three years. the son-in-law of osama bin laden has been convicted on charges of conspiring to kill americans. suleiman abu ghaith is the most senior al qaeda member to be sincein a u.s. court september 11. he described meetings with bin laden in a cave in afghanistan hours after the attack on the world trade center and pentagon but denied having prior knowledge. purported lawyer said his appearance in videos threatening the u.s. does not prove involvement in the plot. words, nott about about association. there are clear requirements under the law. if you want to turn around and

invite people for words, there are about 270 congressmen and women right now that have said some pretty incendiary things about some things. >> the court rejected testimony from alleged plotter khalid shaikh mohammed about abu ghaith . he faces a sentence of up to life in prison. the journalist, author, and activist jonathan schell has died at the age of 70. an advocate for nuclear disarmament, his best-selling book is recognized for helping to spark the antinuclear movement of the 1980's. speaking in 2007, jonathan schell said a nuclear free world is an achievable goal. >> if we had a president who was dedicated to this aim, it could become a reality. it is not like global warming where you perhaps have to change the way we live on a global

basis. we know how to get rid of these things. we have come down halfway since the height of the cold war. we just have to keep going. it is a tremendous task, but it is notably doable. jonathan schell was a longtime writer for the nation magazine and contributing editor --rina vanden heuvel said those are some of the headlines. democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> on juan gonzalez. welcome to our listeners and viewers around world and country . we turn to montana where an attack by a vandal has destroyed one of four facilities in the state that provided abortions. >> you have reached all families

health care. our business no longer exists due to being destroyed by a hate crime. >> that was the voicemail mail message patients received after hours earlier this month when they call their health care provider. early on march 4, vandal's systematically broke or slashed tragically every object or surface inside. the plumbing and heating systems were destroyed, plans were pulled up by their roots, holes stabbed through family photographs. in a letter to a local paper, owner susan cahill road -- wrote -- policen the day, received a report of another break-in at a level a obama office. nearby they found zachary klundt, whose shoe tread match that found at the office. when he was arrested he was carrying a fully loaded pistol with a spare magazine.

he faces arraignment on felony charges, including burglary and criminal mischief. a is the son of twyla klundt, board member of the anti-choice group hope ministries. she resigned following her son's arrest. >> the office destroyed had just opened three weeks before the attack. that is because susan cahill had been forced to relocate after a new owner purchased the building that housed her former office. the executive director of hope for quincy ministries has admitted to buying susan cahill's old building. in a statement, the shell reimer wrote -- it is not the first time susan cahill has faced attempts to stop her from providing abortions. another clinic where she worked was firebombed in 1994.

the following year, the montana state legislature passed a measure known as the susan cahill law, to ban physician assistants from providing abortions. susan cahill was the only physicians assistant providing abortions in the state. the montana supreme court eventually upheld her right to perform abortions, which she has been doing as part of family health care, for 30 eight years. susan cahill joins us from her home in montana. welcome to democracy now! can you talk about what happened on march 4? >> early in the morning, march 4, my receptionist came to work and went in the back door and saw that the glass has been broken through and smartly did not go in, went upstairs to the landlord, who happens to be a lawyer and said in a we have been broken into, call 911. then she called me. by the time i got there the

place was swarming with policeman and fbi. they would not let us go in. in fact, i could not go in until the next day in the afternoon. they worked all night long. you do not know what to expect, and they just kept telling me, you have to be prepared. there is a lot of damage. point, the head police officer asked me if i wanted to see videos before i walked in. i declined. i wanted to see for myself. that day, we just hung out in shock and waited. when you got the news of the arrest of a suspect, could you talk about that, and also who the suspect is? >> it just fit a lot of pieces

together, of course. i find out zachary klundt, the mother of twyla klundt, one of the founders of hope pregnancy's, whom i met five years ago, invited her to lunch to mend fences, talking about our different views, i went and visited hope potencies ministries, invited her to visit my clinic, but she declined. him, it did it was not surprise me. then i also found out what i suspected, which was that hope ministries had bought my previous office. i just put the pieces together. it did not take too much work to do that. a you describe, what the vandal did.

tell us about the shape of your offices, what did he destroy, what kind of weapons did he have? >> i can only surmise what kind of weapons he had. it is very hard to talk about my office because i get very emotional about it. it was awful. only three weeks previous, because i had moved, i had painted it, new cabinets, window coverings, i had friends come, we put up artwork. it was really lovely. i was very happy with how it looked. so to see that whole thing destroyed -- and i really cannot -- heou how much meticulously worked at breaking absolutely everything. i even had an award, being a

risk taker from lifetime tv, from 2003, and it was this big, heavy glass award, and he smashed it. i suspect it was a hammer. i do not know. marks into my family pictures. he broke the glass on everything that had glass, whether it was cabinets or artwork. he completely destroyed my ultrasound machine, of course. and then there were just papers -- couches had holes in them, exam tables had holes in them. the blood pressure cuff was completely destroyed. polls were completely bent. he took a lot of care to do all this damage. >> family photos? >> family photos were destroyed.

, but they have holes in them, the glass was broken out. i had a picture of me and my son lovely who wrote a letter to the editor when i came back in 2003 after doing work in upstate new york. i had framed it and he put holes in our faces and destroyed the newspaper article that was framed. >> we invited michelle reamer, the executive director of hope pregnancy ministries, to join us on the program, but she declined. she did issue a written statement and confirmed the mother of the suspect in the attack on her clinic served on the board of directors of hope pretty ministries. she said twyla klundt had since resigned in order to keep hope ministries from being associated in any way with his actions. she also wrote hope pregnancy

ministries was shocked and saddened by the attack on your clinic, calling it abhorrent and totally unacceptable manner by which to express opposition to abortion. your reaction? >> of course she will say that. she is not going to say we are happy about it. that would not be appropriate. -- they needtake to be accountable for what happened. i wrote a letter to the physician that i have known for 38 years, the physician for hope pregnancy ministries. i said to him, i am a victim here, but so is zachary klundt. babies are born and they are taught to hate. that is where they have to be accountable. >> how was he caught, zachary klundt? how long do you think he spent destroying your clinic? >> it is a very good question

and lots of people who saw the destruction keep saying, how can one person do so much damage? a lot of people think there has to be more than one. i do not know, it is hard to grasp those things. when you cannot imagine doing it yourself -- you cannot imagine anyone doing something like that. i think he must have had to spend a lot of time there. otherot know what this bail bonds plays that he got into was about. my first thought is either he was set up to do that so it looked like a random act. the other thought was that he was drunk over power over what he had just done and continued on. i do not know. >> it has been decades now that you have been conducting your hostilitiesenormous , to the point where the

legislature wrote a law specifically aimed at you. could you talk about the toll it has taken on you and why you persist in maintaining the right to abortion for women? right thingt is the to do. that is why i have continued on. i grew up when abortion was illegal and became legal when i was a young woman. as a young woman, it made total sense to me that women had this medical availability safely. 1974i went to school from to 1976, i was taught to do abortions in my schooling, which does not happen anymore. then when i came to montana, the who was working at the time, dr. armstrong, who was also originally from new york, had vowed, because he saw women

die every day when he was in medical school of the legal if iton, he vowed that ever became legal, he would do it as part of his family practice. by the time that i got on the scene he was so inundated with services that he needed help and saw that i was trained, so we hooked up. never been a doubt in my mind how important this is. when i wrote the letters to the newspaper, i said, rightly so, abortion is a very simple, safe medical procedure. it saves women's lives, because we know that women will always seek abortion services and there is no reason why women should die from it. it is so clear to me. life is hard. families and women need choices in their lives. reproduction is key to being able to make choices in your life. >> you are a physicians

assistant, and the law that the montana legislature passed was directly targeting you, saying a physician's assistant could not perform abortion, but then was overturned by the montana supreme court a couple years later? >> correct. when abortion became legal, roe said only trained physicians could do abortions, which was in response to the illegal people doing abortions before roe. there were not a lot of professionals at the time. physicians assistants, nurse practitioners particularly. when they were trying to stop me from doing them, they went to that law. it took two years for the montana supreme court to say that is not what the law was intended to mean.

it meant that people who were trained and skilled should be able to do this procedure. that is why it was overturned. play a clip of one of your former colleagues, dr. susan wicklund, who recently closed her clinic in livingston, montana, the author of "this common secret: my journey as an abortion doctor." in 2009, during a talk, she described how a shortage of rural abortion providers compelled her to travel to five clinics across three states on the wisconsin, north dakota, and minnesota, to provide abortions, and anti-choice groups figured out what she was doing and she describes how they came to her house in northern minnesota and made a blockade out of cement barrels. cementday they put barrels in my yard to try to keep me from going to the clinic was the same day that i drove all night long to get to the

clinic in fargo and then that morning, the protesters thought i was barricaded in my house. -- buddies thought that they were holding me captive. i stepped out and i put my fist in the air and i said, there will be clinic today, you are not going to stop this clinic. was dr. susan wicklund. she went on to describe how the antichoice extremists went to her daughter's school and put up posters bearing susan's phase saying that she was wanted for the murder of children. your response? >> i know susan very well. my response is, it is painful but not surprising. this is why it is getting harder and harder for us, as abortion providers, to offer that service. it is nonstop.

i do not know what to say about wish everybody i would say this cannot go on. this is a safe, legal, medical procedure, and it is the only medical procedure that is allowed to be demonized continually, and the people who do them to be demonized continually. it wears you down. >> is the fbi looking at this as terrorism? >> i don't think they are looking at it as terrorism, but they are quiet about what they are doing, so i have to respect that. i felt they have been very supportive, so i have to respect that. i do not know. >> i wanted to ask you about the pregnancy ministries. they have been accused of

receiving support from white supremacists. there is a post by a local resident, april gaede, on the neo-nazi site stormfront, in 2009, she wrote -- the executive director of hope pregnancy ministries denied the link in a statement. she wrote, we have no record of ms. gaede making a donation to hope committee ministries. >> did you want me to comment on that? yes, on the supposedly between pregnancy ministries and this white supremacist site.

it does not surprise me. from what i know about that -- and it is only secondhand -- is that once it came out and human rights network pushed it, hope ministries backed off and said we do not want a connection with them. just like they are now saying we abhor this violence to my clinic. they are going to say that, it does not make them look very good. they want to look like they are just these nice little people trying to save babies. i think they are very dangerous people. >> zachery klundt, what kind of weapons did he have when he went into your office and clinic? >> i do not know that either. ,ll i know is what was reported that he had on his person -- i do not even know about arms,

except that he had a semiautomatic rifle in his car and i think a semiautomatic person -- pistol on his person, with an extra round. thatld venture to guess they were with him at the time but i'm not sure of that. >> are you concerned about your own personal safety? i absolutely believe -- this is what i think happened. 's bought my office, hoping that that would stop me from having a business. it is not easy for me to find a place to rent. it took me a long time to find a place on meridian road, but i did. think that pissed off -- the hope pregnancy ministries, so they decided to destroy my office. my feeling is that, if that had not been successful, because of

the incredible violence and hatred that was palpable in my think they would have destroyed me. that is how i feel. so yes, i am nervous about that. >> what are your plans for the future, what has been the reaction in your community to the attack? are you planning to reopen again? mostis has been the dramatic situation of my life so far, which says a lot, considering i have been through a fair amount. it feels bigger because it was an attack on me personally from someone else in the community. our firebombing in 1994 was from a man from texas who had done it to three clinics. i do not know what i will do. i have not made any decisions and i am taking the summer off. my phone lines are open, my fax is open.

mostly, my patients are regular patients, and i am trying to help them with what they need, including referrals. i am not making a commitment to anything until i can think deeply about this. >> susan cahill, i wanted to end by asking you to tell the story behind the painting that was destroyed in your office, the norman rockwell painting "golden which bears the text, do unto others that you would like to have done unto you. what is the history of this painting, where you first got it and where it has hung over the years? >> it is a good story. dr. armstrong and i were at a meeting in philadelphia and we went to the norman rockwell museum. it is an interesting museum that goes around in a circle and we went in opposite directions and came back to the sales desk. when we got there, dr. armstrong

was there already and i came up to said, i think we ought get the golden rule for our office. he looked at me and pointed to the sales person because she was wrapping it at the time. .e bought that together it was being framed when we had our firebombing in our office, so when we rebuilt, which took five months, that was the first thing that went up in our office in the waiting room. it stayed there forever. then when dr. armstrong retired and i opened up all families health care, he gave it to me to put in my office. >> and that was the painting destroyed. susan cahill, thank you for being with us, owner of all families health care. destroyed march 4, and another clinic where she. they worked was firebombed in 1994.

the following year the legislature passed a bill known as the susan cahill law to ban physician's assistance from providing abortions but the supreme court eventually upheld her right to perform abortions. a campaign to raise funds for her after the attack has raised more than $62,000 at the website indiegogo. susan cahill, all the best to you. when we come back, we will be joined by the oscar-winning filmmaker errol morris to talk about his new film "the unknown known." stay with us. ♪ [music break]

>> a song cycle of actual quotes

by a composer and vocalist. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> this marks 11 years since the united states invaded iraq and the legacy of the invasion is staggering. half a million iraqis are dead along with 4400 american soldiers. thousands of civilians and soldiers have been left maimed and continue to suffer from mental trauma. one harvard study estimates the iraq and afghanistan wars combined will cost the u.s. as much as $6 trillion. we spend the rest of the hour looking at a key architect of the iraq war, former secretary of defense donald rumsfeld. he is the focus of a new documentary by oscar-winning director errol morris called "the unknown known." the title refers to a press briefing when rumsfeld faced questions from reporters about the lack of evidence of iraqi

weapons of mass distraction. >> want me to read this? >> yes, please. >> all generalizations are false, including this one. there it is. possible vice residential running mate with president ford. >> questions about rumsfeld is whether he is too ambitious to play second fiddle to reagan. who wereople criticized and said oh my goodness, you are warmongers, we need to understand how we got to where we are. who do we want from the leadership in the world? >> when shakespeare wrote history, the motivating force was character defect, jealousy, etc. maybe shakespeare got it wrong. maybe he had it right.

governor reagan decided to have george bush to be vice president. >> it seems to me that decision had gone a slightly different way, he would have been future president of the united states. >> it's possible. >> how do you think they got away with 9/11? it seems amazing in retrospect. >> everything seems amazing in retrospect. stuff happens. free people are free to make mistakes. to do bad things. they are also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. you have to pick and choose. to the tent you pick and choose and you are wrong, the penalty can be enormous.

knowns. unknown that is to say, things that you think you know, that it turns out you did not. >> that is the trailer for the new documentary, "the unknown known." it's director errol morris is with us now. this is the 10th documentary feature he has made. maker of "thee fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of robert s. mcnamara." his other films include "standard operating procedure" and "the thin blue line." film critic roger ebert called his first film, "gates of heaven " one of the 10 best films of all time. he was also an executive

producer of the oscar-nominated "the act of killing." he is taking part in a miniseries on donald rumsfeld called "the certainty of donald rumsfeld." why did you choose donald rumsfeld to be the subject of this film? "the fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of madet s. mcnamara" and mcnamara a central figure. for me, as a young man, because , one ofar of vietnam the great disasters in american .istory and i made a movie because of questions about that war. how did we get into such an incredible mess?

58,000 american soldiers dead. millions of people in southeast asia dead. call it the salt and pepper shakers where the book ends, but another disastrous for, another secretary of defense. i decided i wanted to do it again. i had made a movie about abu ghraib, so there were a number of other issues which were of great interest to me. >> it is interesting, mcnamara was a reluctant warmonger, whereas rumsfeld is so certain about everything he does. how did you get him to sit down, not just for a couple hours, but for 33 hours of interviews, and to reveal so much about his own thoughts to you?

>> the simplest answer is because he wanted to. he wanted to explain himself. he wanted to provide an account of what he had done. very early on in our first meeting -- >> did he call you or you call him? >> i called him, send him a copy of "the fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of robert s. mcnamara" with a letter. i was told by his lawyer that he would never ever speak to me. forget it, this will never happen. but he did call me. i went to washington, we met. this film is the result. >> in that trailer we just , he talked about the possibility of becoming president. how would that have happened? >> it could have happened in a number of different ways. he was extraordinarily

successful at a very young age. term congressman from illinois, and then a whole number of cabinet appointments in the nixon administration. >> the youngest secretary of defense in the history of the country. in the fordy administration, one of the youngest chiefs of staff, if not the youngest, he for his assistant richard cheney took his place, and then the youngest secretary of defense. he has that distinction of being the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense. first time around for ford, second time for george bush. >> he wrote something like 20,000 memos? >> they were called snowflakes because there were so many of them. probably more than 20,000. >> i want to turn back to the

film -- >> he wrote a lot. >> donald rumsfeld talking about those memos that he wrote on iraq. >> if you look at the range of ofmemos amending maybe 1/10 one percent about iraq. the reason i was concerned was because generals would come to me and say, mr. secretary, we have a problem. our orders are to fly over the northern part of iraqi and the southern part on a daily basis, and we are getting shot at. at some moment, it could be tomorrow, could be next month, could be next year, one of our planes will be shot down, and our pilots and crew will be killed or captured. the question will be, what in the world where we flying those flights for? what was the cost benefit ratio? what was our country gaining?

so you sit down and say, i think i can get the president's attention, remind him that we are being shot at, that we do not have a fresh policy for direct tom a remind him that we have a whole range of options. not an obsession, a very measured, nuanced approach. inthat is donald rumsfeld "the unknown known." our guest is award-winning documentarian errol morris. we are back with him in a moment. ♪ [music break]

is errol morris, the director of the new documentary "the unknown known." he has won an oscar for his

documentary, "the fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of robert s. mcnamara." this film is about donald rumsfeld. guest,his clip, our errol morris, asked him about the torture memos that authorized techniques such as waterboarding against prisoners captured by the united states. >> what about all these so-called torture memos? there were one or two debut or ofee, but there were not all these so-called memos. they were mischaracterized as torture memos. they came not out of the bush administration, per se, but out of the u.s. department of justice, blessed by the attorney official,senior legal having been nominated by a president and confirmed by the united states senate overwhelmingly. little different cast i just put on it than the one that you did.

i would chalk that one up. >> was the reaction unfair? i have never read them. >> really? >> i am not a lawyer. what would i know? >> talk about that exchange you had with him. clip,ange, looking at the even here. of course, i am more than familiar with, having spent so much time with donald rumsfeld, having edited the movie. surprise me in the interview, and still surprise me. someone asked me, is he completely insincere? i said, no, the problem is, he

is completely sincere when he says he never read those torture memos. i do not think he did. when he reads the laundry list of enhanced interrogation torture, hea.k.a. himself seems surprised by what he is reading, as if he had never really carefully read them before. he suddenly says, good grief, that is a pile of stuff. there is this odd disconnection and whathese policies he thinks he is doing. >> there are two things that struck me in the film. , thes his periodic smiles grin of complete certainty about what he is saying, and the other

thing is his relationship to language and use of language. it is certainly -- he always seems to believe he has a better command of the answers then anyone asking the questions. .> i would put it differently wrote about how language could be used by people in power to control others. often, i think this is a new twist on the story. he is controlling others, hiding things from others, and also hiding things from himself. at the end of the story, he retreats into a kind of strange looney tunes world of language where he thinks if he can just find the right set of words, everything will be ok. >> i want to ask about that

grin, your sense of it. >> my wife calls him the cheshire cat, alice in wonderland. alice says, i have often see a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat. it is a strange, disembodied grin, this look of self satisfaction, pleasure. the cat that swallowed the canary. this is one of the strangest and most deserving interviews i've ever done. >> of those tens of thousands of memos, what most shock to you? you are bringing us, as you did with fog of war, the vietnam war, now iraq, from the perspective of the person running the war, or one of them.

is, what, the question about the target end, do you have a desire to make a film from a victim's perspective? >> i had a desire to make a specific kind of film. i call it history from the inside out. this was also true of mcnamara. how do they see the world? histories.oral i did not interview 15, 20 people. i interviewed one person. >> you interviewed many people but just use the one around the film, asking them their thoughts about rumsfeld. >> i interviewed only one person on camera. i actually interviewed two people on camera but knew that i was not using the second one, interviewed his wife joy, who i

very much liked. you asked me a question about whether there was one memo among these thousand of stood out among the others. i would say yes. the most disturbing of the disturbing memos, rumsfeld greatest hits. he is a man of slogans and epithets, rules, etc. weakness is provocative, pearl harbor is a failure of the imagination. but the most the various of them is absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. he said this to, guess who? president of the united states. i see him reading this memo. where does it come from? from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, used by a british astronomer and carl sagan.

we are looking for intelligent life somewhere else in the universe. the universe is a very big place. we have not found evidence but that does not mean they are not out there. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. >> of course, he was talking about weapons of mass destruction. >> this gets transferred over to iraq. where it makes no sense, i might add. exchange to play and from the pentagon briefings, when rumsfeld first described his ideas about the known unknown to the public, questioned by nbc's pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. >> in regard to iraq, weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, is there any evidence to indicate iraqi has attempted to

or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction? because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between baghdad and these terrorist organizations. thatports that say something has not happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are ns, things that we know, as well as known unknowns. things that we know that we do not know. but there are also unknown unknowns, things that we do not know we do not know. if one looks at the history of our country and other free countries it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones. so people who have the omniscience that they can say with high certainty that something has not happened, or is not being tried, have

capabilities that are -- what was the word that you used earlier? they can do things i cannot do. it -- is me, but this this and unknown known? >> i will not say which it is. >> that was donald rumsfeld in 2002. he has been back in the news this week, during an appearance on fox news, said a trained ape could do a better job in afghanistan than president obama. >> our relationship with karzai and afghanistan was first rate in the bush administration. it has gone downhill like a toboggan ever since the obama administration. fact thatxample the we have status of forces agreement with 125 countries in the world. this administration, the white house and state department, have

failed to get a status of forces agreement. a trained ape could get a status of forces agreement. it does not take a genius. your reactions, to this latest statement from donald rumsfeld? >> horrified. we all know the various officials of the bush administration, george w. bush himself, will never be held alluntable for most, if not of the things that happened under their watch. they can now sit back and crow about one thing or another. indulge in one form of partisan politics after another. maybe that is the most

disturbing thing about this story. that they took us to war for no good reason. shouldn't they be, in some way, held accountable for that fact? is that important to our democracy, that we do not just simply sweep the past under the rug? that we do with it in some fashion? yourterestingly, in interview with rumsfeld, one of the mistakes he believes he made was not resigning after the abu ghraib revelations, even though he hastens to add that it was overblown as a systemic problem rather than a problem with a few bad apples in the military on a night shift. he tended two resignations, neither of which were accepted by the president.

he often wants to have it both ways. gestureprovide some suggesting that he takes complete responsibility and on the other hand takes none. >> does he ever apologize? >> that word is not really part of his lexicon. >> what most shock you in your conversations with rumsfeld? >> so many things. unendingly says things which are not true

action. spike lee. aahhh!

no one's gonna say, "we're gonna take a chance on you." i never thought that would happen. so out of frustration, i wrote "reservoir dogs." hollywood is not very alluring to me. i am not susceptible to swimming pools and porsches. i got a '79 chevy. it's runnin' good. i'm a film outlaw, and i think that's a good thing to be. annenberg media ♪ and: with additional funding from these foundations d individuals: and by: and the annual financial support of: