After May 7, 2004: Former Defense Policy Board Member Confronts Rumsfeld about Claims of Ignorance Regarding Abu Ghraib

Some time after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s testimony to Congress, where he claimed he knew virtually nothing about the Abu Ghraib incidents (see May 7, 2004), former Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman confronts Rumsfeld. As Adelman will recall: “I said to Rumsfeld, ‘Well, the way you handled Abu Ghraib I thought was abysmal.’ He says, ‘What do you mean?’ I say, ‘It broke in January of—what was that, ‘04? Yeah, ‘04. And you didn’t do jack sh_t till it was revealed in the spring.’ He says, ‘That’s totally unfair. I didn’t have the information.’ I said, ‘What information did you have? You had the information that we had done these—and there were photos. You knew about the photos, didn’t you?’ He says, ‘I didn’t see the photos. I couldn’t get those photos. A lot of stuff happens around here. I don’t follow every story.’ I say, ‘Excuse me, but I thought in one of the testimonies you said you told the president about Abu Ghraib in January. And if it was big enough to tell the president, wasn’t it big enough to do something about?’ He says, ‘Well, I couldn’t get the photos.’ I say, ‘You’re secretary of defense. Somebody in the building who works for you has photos, and for five months you can’t get photos—hello?’” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009]