Tell me he didn't really say that

Via this one and that one, I found it at Billmon's Whiskey Bar.

[Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] ... told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that the Bush administration had put off much of the planning for the aftermath of the Iraq war -- launched on March 20 -- out of concern such planning would bring on the conflict.

''We did not want to have planning for the post war make the war inevitable. We did not want to do anything that would prejudge or somehow preordain that there was definitely going to be a war,'' he said.

It's like the absurdity has no ceiling.

And Billmon's comment:

Pace was talking to members of our illustrious Chamber of People's Deputies. So he may have had good reason to think his audience would buy it.

I still don't know why he bothered, though. He could have just told them to shut up and mind their own business, which is appropriating more money for the Marine Corps. And you know they would.

Yep.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.