Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday – the Christmas
Eve Speech for U.S. Troops in Iraq, December 24, 2004 (CNN)
"I think all
of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people
who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain,
or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane
over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples'
heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized'
is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be
something other than that which they want to be."
Confirmed by Dick Cheney:
"Well, I
discussed it with the president. Are we prepared to order our aircraft to shoot
down these airliners that have been hijacked? He said yes... I--it was my
advice. It was his decision."(Vice President Dick Cheney,
Confirmed by President Bush:
"That's a
sobering moment, to order your own combat aircraft to shoot down your own
civilian aircraft. But it was an easy decision to make, given the--given the
fact that we had learned that a commercial aircraft was being used as a weapon.
I say easy decision. It was--I didn't hesitate; let me put it to you that way.
I knew what had to be done."(President George W. Bush,