Former Vice President Dick Cheney, under fire for bombastic, misleading and outright lies about claimed Bush Administration "successes" in the so-called "war on terror," is changing his story.
Now, after years of claiming Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- one of the "justifications" used by the Bush White House to sell the invasion of Iraq -- Cheney now admits no such link existed.
"On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that," Cheney told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Monday. "There was some reporting early on, for example, that Mohammed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official but that was never borne out."
Cheney's admission directly contradicts a claim he made on Meet the Press in 2003.
At that time, he claimed, "the Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intellgence official five months before the attack."
In the Van Susterin interview, Cheney blamed former CIA Director George Tenet for raising the issue of possible links between Iraq and the hijackers but now admits "no proof" ever surfaced to confirm such a link.
Cheney's admission bolsters the case that reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 were manufactured by the Bush Administration to sell the invasion to Congress, the United Nations and the American public.
Another of the Administration fabrications -- that former Iraqi dictator has weapons of mass destruction and intended to use those weapons on the United States -- faded into the propaganda mist when invading American troops failed to find any such weapons.
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What intrigued me was Cheney's statement about gay marriage and his equating it with equal rights. There's gonna be a lot of scurrying in the Christian right wing to try to recover from that particular defection.
Excuse me but when an administration lies to Congress, the United Nations and the American people to get us into a war that has caused the deaths of thousands of people (Iraqis included not just American soldiers), and then the former Vice President admits they were lying, why isn't he (Cheney) and Bush both in jail? They are war criminals. What's wrong with this country that we're letting the worse war criminals since Adolph Hitler just walk?
Good question Tall Mike. I've asked it many times myself. Maybe it is acceptable when liars lie to liars, and as long as they all get rich, none of them will raise a stink above the already pervasive smell that lies heavy in the Capitol Dome.
Cheney and his lies would be a joke if it weren't for the fact that they bankrupted our country because of them, killed thousands of Americans and dozens of the meager forces of the "Coalition", and murdered many innocent Iraqi citizens. Cheney is obviously delusional, Bush has his head buried in the dirt at crawford ranch, Rice is out shopping for shoes, Rumsfeld is getting away with his war crimes, and Wolfowicz is shacked up with his floozy counting his retirement bucks.
They all belong in jail, and they deserve as good as they gave and so should be waterboarded at least 3 times a day, especially since it isn't, according to them, torture.
Maybe, being the good Christian Conservatives they profess to be (but wait--don't CCs believe in the 10 commandments or at least the ones saying Thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery--oops, sorry, that was the preceeding president--- and a few other thou shalt nots?) there will be a special place reserved for them in the lower tiers of the Hot Spot!
Justice is sometimes for sale, and these crooks surely have the dough to avoid it.
Awesome comment, but for the last bit, Justice is ALWAYS for sale. Ever sat in a court room? The guys that can afford private counsel get to go first. Those with public pretenders go second, those that have nothing go last. That is Justice for the rich. Thanks, Keith
To Boldly Go...
Anywhere there is sanity...
A plea to Doug--
Please stop posting photos of Cheney and Bush. I often read the column before dinner and you make me nauseous every time I see their evil visages!
Thanks, and keep em honest if you can...
Dick Cheney is and always has been a lying amoral gas bag. He's the 21st Century's Darth Vader; only he serves his own interests not the emporer's. I agree with barak.
It is great to see Cheney squirm. His lies about WMD and Torture put him on this hook.
Time for Justice for the American People.
Enforce our US Federal Laws on Torture.
Indict Cheney.
If you do nothing else for your Country today,
SIGN THE PETITION To Prosecute Them For Torture
AT ANGRYVOTERS dot ORG
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
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Join them and call yourself a Patriot
This man is pathological. He has no conscience. Therefore he has no sense of guilt, shame, or remorse.
I told you they were lying!
The invasion of Iraq by G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their cabal was nothing but a pack of lies designed to depose Saddam Hussein, steal Iraqi oil and enrich those in power.
Prison is too good for these lying bastards...
Charlie Couser
Those of us who have actually been paying attention over the past seven-odd years are hardly surprised to learn that Cheney was lying when he claimed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. To the best of my knowledge, information concerning the Downing Street Memo -- in which the Bush administration was reported to be "fixing the facts around the policy" -- has been available for five years and has never been discredited. Why the matter was never looked into is beyond me.
Personally, I think it's probably not an accident that Iraq is one of the world's top five countries in terms of petroleum reserves and one of the two countries on that list considered to be unfriendly towards the United States. (The other three countries on the list are Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Kuwait). Add to that the fact that Matt Simmonds -- a investment banker with a Harvard MBA who has specialized in the energy industry for twenty years, now a prominent and vocal figure in the Peak Oil movement -- was reportedly part of the mysterious Cheney Energy Task Force, and it's hard not to perceive a pattern there, especially when you consider the fact that the other country on the top-five list in terms of petroleum reserves which is considered to be an unfriendly is...Iran. And who was the Bush administration trying to rattle a saber against in the year or two before leaving office? Yup...
Why isn't this scum in prison?