Just by statistical chance, not all of the Pentagon czar's decisions proved disastrous. Shortly after U.S. troops took Baghdad, Rumsfeld saw a draft of Bush's planned victory address from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. "I took 'Mission Accomplished' out," Rumsfeld told Woodward. "I was in Baghdad and I was given a draft of the thing and I just died. And I said, it's too inclusive. And I fixed it and sent it back. They fixed the speech but not the sign." As Woodward points out -- with none of the equivocation that marred his earlier Bush books -- Rumsfeld's story proves that White House spokesmen were lying when they claimed that the "Mission Accomplished" banner had been devised by the sailors on the Lincoln.

- Salon review of "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward

A pathetic and utterly unconvincing lie is finally abandonded. It only took three years.

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, Lies