Rumsfeld calls for Congressional investigation of Obama Afghan strategy speech

  AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

In his long-awaited Afghan strategy speech, President Obama falsely said:

"Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive."

According to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, those 21 words are yet another example of Obama bearing false witness.

In a written statement, Rumsfeld called for Congress to instigate Obama's unsupported assertion:

In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that ‘Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.’ Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as Secretary of Defense, deserves a response.

I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006. If any such requests occurred, ‘repeated’ or not, the White House should promptly make them public.  The President's assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan.

In the interest of better understanding the President's announcement last night, I suggest that the Congress review the President’s assertion in the forthcoming debate and determine exactly what requests were made, who made them, and where and why in the chain of command they were denied.”

Congress, thanks to the antiwar Democrats, wasted a lot of time investigating President Bush's famous 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union address, which were ultimately found to be correct. The least the Democrat-controlled Congress can do is investigate Obama's 21 words.