"Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing!"

But we are still doing it.

Rumsfeld today changed his story about US paid propaganda in Iraqi news media:

Rumsfeld told reporters he was mistaken in the earlier assertion.

"I don't have knowledge as to whether it's been stopped. I do have knowledge it was put under review. I was correctly informed. And I just misstated the facts," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news briefing.

Rumsfeld also told reporters than he had no knowledge of the Dubai Ports Deal until a few days after it had been approved:

I am reluctant to make judgments based on the minimal amount of information I have because I just heard about this over the weekend.

But as Think Progress reports, the deal will directly affect Rumsfeld's Defense Department. And that's not all:

Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, is a member of Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. As such, he was one of the people who, according to the Treasury Department, unanimously approved the sale on February 13. How could do that when he didn’t even find out about the sale until last weekend?

Serial liar, or just an incompetent ass?

As one TP commenter noted, this Dubai Ports deal has the fingerprints of Bush Snr's Carlyle Group all over it. There are also lots of ties between the Dubai operators and the Bush administration. No wonder Bush is threatening to - gasp! - use the veto:

Bush said that protesting lawmakers should understand his approval of the deal was final.

"They ought to listen to what I have to say about this," the president said. "They'll look at the facts and understand the consequences of what they're going to do. But if they pass a law, I'll deal with it with a veto."

Bush, who has never vetoed a bill as president, said on the White House South Lawn:

"This is a company that has played by the rules, has been cooperative with the United States, from a country that's an ally on the war on terror, and it would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through."

Ah, yes, friends...

NB: I believe the US spelling "ass" is appropriate in this case, as I am referring to a US citizen. Australia's John Howard is, of course, an "arse". Did you see that Canada just bagged our collapsed wheat deal with Iraq? Hilarious. So it's one, two, three: what are we fighting for?