White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Briefs Reporters Sunday: The conversation began by Secretary Rumsfeld saying, something to the effect of: Mr. President, the first reports are not always accurate. The President interrupted the Secretary and said: This sounds like it's going to be good news. And Secretary Rumsfeld then continued and said: General Abizaid called me, he feels confident that we got Saddam Hussein. The President said: Well, that is good news. [...]
Q Did he use the word "confident"? I'm sorry. He used the word "confident"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't know the Secretary's exact words, but essentially something to that effect.
Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance (Updated November 18, 2003)
Keeping Secrets: The Bush administration is doing the public's business out of the public eye. Here's how - and why
For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government - cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis. Bush administration officials often cite the September 11 attacks as the reason for the enhanced secrecy. But as the Inauguration Day directive from Card indicates, the initiative to wall off records and information previously in the public domain began from Day 1.
