Rewriting history

Opinion: February 15, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will visit the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Wednesday, though he may try to deny it afterward.

Living in a state of denial seems reflexive these days for Rumsfeld, who is promoting his new memoir, “Known and Unknown.” The book offers an unapologetic, self-serving defense of his role in the costly and tragically misguided Iraq war.

You might be reluctant to examine your past decisions, too, if they had led to a war that cost 4,400 American lives and at least $700 billion. So, readers won’t get soul-searching from Rumsfeld about Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent WMDs, or the lack of an Iraqi link to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration’s main arguments for going to war.

Now that history has proved him wrong, the best Rumsfeld can muster is the mantra that the world is better off without Hussein. He knew at the time that was not a good enough reason to invade Iraq.

If there were mistakes, Rumsfeld lays the blame on others in the Bush administration — former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former National Security Council director Condoleezza Rice, former CIA director George Tenet. Anybody but Rummy.