ace....this is an excerpt of the same Cheney interview of Sept. 10, 2006, that Tenet says is a betrayl....Cheney cites Tenet as saying "Slam Dunk" as to Tenet's certainty that intelligence findings justify invading and occupying Iraq:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
......Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Q But the President said they were working in concert, giving the strong suggestion to the American people that they were involved in September 11th.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, they are -- there are two totally different propositions here. And people have consistently tried to confuse them. And it's important, I think -- there's a third proposition, as well, too, and that is Iraq's traditional position as a strong sponsor of terror.
So you've got Iraq and 9/11: no evidence that there's a connection. You've got Iraq and al Qaeda: testimony from the Director of CIA that there was, indeed, a relationship; Zarqawi in Baghdad, et cetera. Then the --
Q The committee said that there was no relationship. In fact, Saddam --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't seen the report. I haven't had a chance to read it yet --
Q But, Mr. Vice President, the bottom line is --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- but the fact is, we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02, and was there from then basically until the time we launched into Iraq.
Q The bottom line is the rationale given to the American people was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and he could give those weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda, and we could have another September 11th. And now we read that there is no evidence according to Senate intelligence committee of that relationship. You said there's no involvement. The President says there's no involvement --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, no involvement in what respect?
Q In September 11th, okay? And the CIA said leading up to the war that the possibility of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction was "low." It appears that there was a deliberate attempt made by the administration to link al Qaeda in Iraq in the minds of the American people and use it as a rationale to go into Iraq.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, I guess -- I'm not sure what part you don't understand here. In 1990, the State Department designated Iraq as a state sponsor of terror. Abu Nidal, famous terrorist, had sanctuary in Baghdad for years. Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda. You had the fact that Saddam Hussein, for example, provided payments to the families of suicide bombers of $25,000 on a regular basis. This was a state sponsor of terror. He had a relationship with terror groups. No question about it. Nobody denies that.,,,,
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We now know, because Tenet has finally commented, that Cheney's assertion that Tenet said the justification for going to war is a "Slam Dunk", is false....
Is there anything else that Cheney says above, to defend going to war with Iraq, besides your oft cited, "Saddam paid families of suicide bombers $25,000" that Cheney said to defend going to war, that has not been discredited.....if you see such a thing in the above quote box, please point it out. If not.....isn't it at least disturbing, that the justifications for war that Cheney gave to Russert on 9/10/2006, 3-1/2 years after the invasion of Iraq, are "Slam Dunk", "Zarqawi was present in Iraq"....even though there was no proof that Saddam or his government tolerated his "presence", and it had since been shown that they did not....they had tried to capture him, and that he "trained terrorists at a poison camp".....a long discredited assertion, refuted when Powell first told it to the UN, a camp that the US was accused of allowing to exist because it was about the only "justification" that they had to attack Iraq in early 2003?
The camp that Cheney inaccurately said was at "Kermal" was nearby....proven not to be in an area that Saddam's troops or agents had access to, either by ground or by air....but it was located in an area accessible by US allies....the Kurds, and in an area of the "no fly zone"....under airspace controlled by US and UK warplanes.
Isn't it at least "odd" that Cheney still repeats these disproven and discredited "reasons"....doesn't the "slam dunk" citation finally discredited by Tenet himself, this week, and Cheney repeating them, as recently as 4 weeks ago in an interview with Rush, at least make Cheney's credibility suspect, in your eyes, ace? How do you do it.....how do you not take any of it into account?
Doesn't it make sense that Cheney says this "stuff" because he has nothing better to say to justify going to war....a war that has turned out to be a disaster, and was said by many experts, to be illegal aggression, even before it began? If all Cheney has to justify going to war, is "Saddam paid $25,000" and his "Tenet said slam dunk" and "Zarqawi ran a poison camp" are disproven bullshit spin, would you ever consider them to be lies? Is Cheney allowed, with a democratic majority now, in the congress, to simply go on telling the same lies to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
Isn't that dysfunctional, a bad sign of the state of the American system of government, ace.....What are you defending, then? What do you stand for?
Why do you support such a low level of integrity and honesty in your leaders?