Cheney: "Yes, I'm a lying jackass"

[Sionnach Glic]

Cheney: No 'evidence' of Iraq, 9/11 link

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says there was "never any evidence" that Saddam Hussein's Iraq played any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

"On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that," Cheney said during an interview Monday night with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren.

"There was some reporting early on, for example, that Mohammed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official," Cheney said. "But that was never borne out."

In a 2003 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney said that "the Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack."

But Cheney added, "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know."

Cheney said Monday that former CIA Director George Tenet brought to the Bush White House information pertaining to potential links between the hijacker and Iraq as "it became available." But Cheney pointed out that Tenet "did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9/11."

The former vice president explained away the early uncertainty of the connection by insisting that intelligence gathering is "more an art form than a science," pointing to several examples of past CIA failures.

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"They misread Saddam Hussein's intent when he invaded Kuwait in 1990," Cheney said. "They underestimated the extent of the Iraqi program to try to acquire nuclear capability back in '90 and '91. They missed 9/11."

Cheney did not list the never-found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as an intelligence failure, saying only that the CIA and the broader intelligence community have done a "magnificent job as part of the effort to keep the United States safe these last seven and a half years."

"The intelligence community has had some enormous successes in the last few years," he said. "You usually don't hear about the successes. What you hear about are the train wrecks, the things that didn't work out quite right."

[Mikey]

"The US intelligence community's complete failure to find evidence to back up my administration's standpoint? No, why would that be a problem?"

[Nutso]

[Tsukiyumi]

Wow, that's uncanny.

[Mikey]

I just thought - shouldn't the thread title read "... unrepentant lying jackass?"

[Sionnach Glic]

Well, I'd taken that as a given.

[stitch626]

So, when does Congress press charges for several thousand counts of murder?

[Tyyr]

Ya know, that was one of the biggest fuck ups of the Bush administration. The inability to just come clean on some things. "Yeah, we screwed the pooch. The intel on Iraq and WMD and Al-Queda was spotty and fell through. We fucked up." Not that people wouldn't be pissed, but at least it would demonstrate they could admit a total cock up when it happened and then move forward.

[Foxfyre]

Fraid not on that one, oh well we now have a new man in the White house......hopefully he does a better job.

[Sionnach Glic]

Ya know, that was one of the biggest f**k ups of the Bush administration. The inability to just come clean on some things. "Yeah, we screwed the pooch. The intel on Iraq and WMD and Al-Queda was spotty and fell through. We f***ed up." Not that people wouldn't be pissed, but at least it would demonstrate they could admit a total cock up when it happened and then move forward.

Very true. If they'd just had the ability to say "yeah, we were wrong, sorry" then the US would probably have a better image abroad than it does now.

[Mikey]

Yep. If nothing else, at least the backlash would have swelled and then faded instead of dragging on.

[Deepcrush]

Thing is that we knew all along that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It was a running joke in DC how the White House kept pushing for someone to find something no matter how pathetic it was. Still, never found anything.

[Mikey]

Well, according to the Bush administration, they did - after all, they're brown people, so they must have had something to do with it.

Yep - "we're attacking because they have WMD's!"
"Ummm... no they don't."
"Well, they may one day... or not... so we're attacking!"

[Deepcrush]

If only their plan had made that much sense!