Prometheus 6

"Thought and careful preparation went into what I said," Rumsfeld wrote in the letter.

Rumsfeld Reaches Out to Democrats
In Letter, Secretary Says Recent Speech Was Misconstrued
By Anne Plummer Flaherty
Associated Press
Saturday, September 2, 2006; A12

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats yesterday, opening the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief.

In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said remarks he made Tuesday during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the news media. Rumsfeld said he was "concerned" by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory.

"I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive," Rumsfeld wrote.

In his speech before thousands of veterans, Rumsfeld said the world faces "a new type of fascism" and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement. He alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."

Without explicitly citing Bush critics at home or abroad, he said that "it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons." Aides to Rumsfeld said later he was not accusing the administration's critics of trying to appease the terrorists but was cautioning against a repeat of errors made in earlier eras.