Cheney's 'Dishonest and Reprehensible' Charges

Last night, Vice President Dick Cheney said that "the suggestion that's
been made by some U.S. senators that the President of the United States
or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American
people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and
reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." Let's be clear:
President Bush and many members of his administration misled the
American people on pre-war intelligence. It was either purposeful or
the result of gross negligence. These claims were repeatedly advanced
to justify the invasion of Iraq. Blaming the people who point it out is
one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired by Vice
President Cheney. White House senior advisor Dan Bartlett added that
the administration's critics have "crossed a bright line" by claiming
that the Bush administration misled Americans into war because "they
have no facts on their side." Actually, there are mountains of facts to
support the claim. Here's a selection of grossly misleading claims made
before the war by Cheney himself:

CHENEY SAID IT WAS AN 'ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY' IRAQ WAS DEVELOPING NUCLEAR
WEAPONS: On September 8, 2002, Cheney said, "[i]t is now public that,
in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to
intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular
channel, the kinds of [aluminum] tubes that are necessary to build a
centrifuge. ... We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam
Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he
needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." Cheney
"was referring to the aluminum tubes." At the time, "[t]he Department
of Energy, the Nation's foremost nuclear weapons experts, and the
State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, did not
believe the aluminum tubes were for centrifuges to make nuclear
weapons." After the invasion, months of inspections "found no evidence
of hidden centrifuges or a revived nuclear weapons program."

CHENEY SAID IT WAS 'PRETTY WELL CONFIRMED' THAT IRAQI INTELLIGENCE
OFFICERS MET WITH A 9/11 HIJACKER: On December 9, 2001, Vice President
Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed, that [one of the 9/11
hijackers, Mohammed Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a
senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia
last April, several months before the attack." The CIA has stated
publicly that it didn't have "any credible information" that the
meeting took place. The bi-partisan 9/11 Commission concluded the
meeting did not occur. Even after the 9/11 Commission issued their
findings, Cheney refused to back away from his statements. In June
2004, he stated that "we just don't know" whether the meeting took
place.

CHENEY SAID THAT IRAQ TRAINED AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS: On December 2, 2002,
Vice President Cheney claimed that Saddam Huissen's regime "has had
high-level contacts with al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided
training to al Qaeda terrorists." It wasn't true and the administration
knew it. According to the New York Times the information came from a
detainee "identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush
administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its
claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and
chemical weapons." A February 2002 document by the Defense Intelligence
Agency said that the detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, ''was
intentionally misleading the debriefers.''