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Bush and Cheney's Campaign Lies
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Carla Binion
The latest lie being pushed by the White House is that the CIA gave
the Bush administration bad intelligence and misled them into believing
Iraq was a threat to the U.S. John Nichols writes in DICK:
THE MAN WHO IS PRESIDENT (The New Press, 2004) that after September
11, Dick Cheney frequently visited the CIA and pressured CIA briefers
to come up with evidence to support a case for war with Iraq.
Nichols writes, "Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat and member
of the House Intelligence Committee, said in July 2003 that he knew
of at least three intelligence analysts who felt pressured to warp
their findings. So troubling were the reports of Cheney's repeated
visits to the CIA headquarters, and of his badgering of analysts, that
three members of the House Intelligence Committee finally dispatched
a letter to the vice president that read: 'These visits are unprecedented. Normally,
vice presidents, yourself included, receive regular briefings from
[the] CIA in your office and have a CIA officer on permanent detail. There
is no reason for the vice president to make personal visits to the
CIA.'"
Cheney pushed another lie when he implied in the recent vice presidential
candidates' debate that he didn't embrace the concept of preemptive
war until after 9/11. He said September 11 "makes us think
in new ways. We can't wait until we're attacked to use force."
According to Nichols and a number of other sources, Dick Cheney had
a fever to go into Iraq and preemptively strike and oust Saddam Hussein
well before September 11, 200l. Nichols writes that Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld were circulating memos with such titles as "Plan
for Post-Saddam Iraq," and "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield
Contracts" in early 2001.
A few months later, nineteen hijackers, none of whom were connected
with Saddam Hussein, attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Almost
immediately after the attacks, Cheney and others in the Bush administration
started working to link Iraq with 9/11. Nichols says that when
the CIA wouldn't report Iraq was involved in 9/11, Cheney fell back
on information from an independent intelligence unit set up by Rumsfeld.
Nichols adds that Cheney "became known for peddling
outlandish claims," including the idea that Iraq was, in Cheney's
words, "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us
under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." Rather
than listen to respected, objective intelligence analysts, Cheney went
trolling for information from the likes of Ahmad Chalabi, whom Nichols
describes as a "con man."
Today when the White House says it was "misled" by bad
intelligence on Iraq, it fails to mention this happened because Cheney
and others in the administration would only listen to information that
supported their preconceived plans. Not only did the administration
refuse to heed reliable CIA sources, but they also ignored facts provided
by Richard Clarke, Bush's National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism. Clarke
resigned in part because of Cheney's misrepresentations about Iraq
and the resulting shift of focus from Osama bin Laden and what Clarke
considered the actual terrorist threats.
Nichols writes that Clarke told Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball" that "the
vice president was in meetings that vice presidents have never been
in before, helping shape the policy before it got to the president." Matthews
asked, "Had Cheney been against the war with Iraq, would we have
gone?" Clarke responded, "I doubt it. He was
critical."
In his book, AGAINST ALL ENEMIES (Free Press, 2004), Clarke says that
after 9/11, he thought eliminating al-Qaeda should be the priority. He
also thought it important to offer an alternative to the terrorists'
ideology; to help stabilize nations threatened by those terrorists
and to make the U.S. less vulnerable. Clarke was stunned by the
Bush administration's diversionary focus on Iraq.
He writes that despite Cheney's claim Iraq was a key geographic
base for the terrorists who threaten us, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan were far more important priorities. The White House
likely knew Iraq was no "imminent threat" to the U.S., according
to Clarke. However, he points out that when Bush had his "Top
Gun" moment on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, he misleadingly
told troops that the invasion of Iraq was only one battle "in
the War on Terrorism that began on September 11."
Clarke says of the Bush speech, "What a horrible thing it
was to give such a false impression to our people and our troops." He
adds that the truth might "have come as a disappointing shock
to American troops being targeted by snipers and blown up by landmines
in Iraq."
As John Edwards said in the recent vice presidential candidates' debate,
both Bush and Cheney have repeatedly insinuated invading Iraq was a
reasonable response to the events of September 11. Their public
rationale for the Iraq war has shifted many times, but initially they
repeatedly implied the troops were dying in Iraq for the noble cause
of both retaliating against and protecting this country from the perpetrators
of the 9/11 attacks.
Bush and Cheney are now going around the country brazenly campaigning
on a mountain of obvious, easy-to-debunk lies. Cheney keeps repeating
the preposterous, delusional notion that Iraq was an urgent threat
to the U.S., despite the fact that every respected intelligence source
and all reliable evidence contradicts him. Bush keeps on with
his traveling carnival show, peddling the snake oil of an idea that
the only thing he did wrong on Iraq was let the intelligence agencies
deceive him.
These aren't just any political issues where Democrats and Republicans
differ for merely partisan reasons with equally valid viewpoints. Bush
and Cheney's false statements and insinuations, such as the implied
link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, are demonstrably untrue.
The Bush and Cheney deceptions about Iraq aren't just any political
lies. These lies are getting young Americans and others killed
and maimed every day, causing their families unspeakable grief.
For the most part, mainstream TV networks, where most people get
their news, won't take a stand and make crystal clear to the public
that Bush and Cheney are without question lying to them on Iraq, and
have been lying all along. If the TV newscasters were doing their
job, this information would be common knowledge among the public. However,
according to Editor & Publisher,
October 5, 2004, "a
new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that 42% of those surveyed thought
the former Iraqi leader was involved in the attacks on New York City
and Washington."
As Richard Clarke said, what a horrible thing it is for the administration
to cavalierly give our people and our troops false impressions on a
life-or-death matter such as the war in Iraq. What a horrible
thing it is for the American people to have to live with
the repercussions of Bush and Cheney's ongoing campaign lies.
A BUZZFLASH READER
CONTRIBUTION
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