Cheney Continues Deceit: "Congress Never Misled"

It is amazing to read of Vice-President Dick Cheney's continued assertion that Congress wasn't misled, and that in particular Senator Kerry had the same facts as everyone else. Cheney jumped into the attack on Kerry for proposing a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

As reported in the Washington Post today (6/16/06):

"Vice President Cheney weighed in, taking note of Kerry's statement earlier this week urging fellow Democrats who joined him in authorizing force in 2002 to acknowledge that the war is a mistake. "I'm not surprised at John Kerry switching his position yet again," Cheney said on Sean Hannity's radio talk show. Kerry is charging "that somehow he was misled," the vice president said. "He wasn't misled. He saw the same intelligence all the rest of us saw. He knew what an evil actor Saddam Hussein was."

But this is old news.

I suppose the more you repeat a lie the more likely somebody will believe it.

Has Mr. Cheney forgotten the 9/11 Commission's conclusions on the actual relationship between Iraq and al Quaeda? As was reported in 2004:

"By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 17, 2004; Page A01

The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq.

Along with the contention that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials have often asserted that there were extensive ties between Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network; earlier this year, Cheney said evidence of a link was "overwhelming."

But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday's hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

But it was the Vice-President who himself misled Congress and the American people!

As the news report related in 2004:

"Speaking about Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney connected Iraq to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by saying that newly found Iraqi intelligence files in Baghdad showed that a participant in the bombing returned to Iraq and "probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven." He added: "The Iraqi government or the Iraqi intelligence service had a relationship with al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s."

Shortly after Cheney asserted these links, Bush contradicted him, saying: "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th." But Bush added: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties."

In January, Cheney repeated his view that Iraq was tied to al Qaeda, saying that "there's overwhelming evidence" of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection. He said he was "very confident there was an established relationship there."

So was Senator Kerry misled?

Has this Administration ever been found to release incorrect information?

Either this nation went into war under false pretenses that were manipulated, or the degree of incompetence in the intelligence interpretation by this President and Vice-President is so unbelievable that this is an incriminating fact in itself.

Senator Kerry speaks truth to power.

Keep on coming John! We got your back!

Bob