Will Rumsfeld's Memoir Tell All?

Washington is eagerly awaiting the publication of Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir, to be titled Known and Unknown, with the expectation that the former defense secretary will offer new information about the run up to the Iraq war. A new website will be created to complement the book, and will host thousands of pages of previously classified documents and memos. The move is an obvious attempt to bolster Rumsfeld’s image. The publisher says the memoir opens with the story of “what really happened” during Rumsfeld’s 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein; the resulting photograph—an image of the two smiling and shaking hands—was shown endlessly during the worst of the Iraq war. The book, whose title is a play on Rumsfeld’s comment about the “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” before the Iraq invasion, will be published in January.