Sometimes I wonder how Dick Cheney can sleep at night, and then I remember that not only has he become immune to lies and distortion, he has developed an insatiable hunger for them. Following Charles Duelfer's testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday, Cheney began the amazing spin game by mischaracterizing the weapons inspector's findings in order to make the Iraqi invasion seem sane by attempting to divert attention away from the WMD issue. In a town hall meeting, Cheney pointed to the corrupt UN Oil-for-Food program as evidence of Saddam's desire to get the international community to lift sanctions so he could continue weapons programs he had completely abandoned in 1995. Some of Cheney's quotes are simply jaw-dropping:

"The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad. We already knew that,'' Cheney said. He said other parts of the report were "more intriguing.''

...

Although the report says Saddam's weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War and did not pose a threat to the world in 2003, it also says Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.

"As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back'' to his weapons program, Cheney said.

The vice president said the report concluded that the United Nations' "Fuel for Food'' program "was totally corrupted by Saddam Hussein. There were suggestions employees of the United Nations were part of the scheme as well.''

"The suggestion is clearly there by Mr. Duelfer that Saddam had used the program in such a way that he had bought off foreign governments and was building support among them to take the sanctions down,'' Cheney said.

Thus there was no reason to wait to invade Iraq to give inspectors more time to do their work, Cheney said.

For one, the United States invaded Iraq because the administration was certain that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, not because Hussein was bribing people, which is an absolutely idiotic angle for the administration to take. Now they want the American people to believe that over 1000 Americans have died because Hussein was passing bills under the table so he could, one day, make the WMD they believed were already there? Lunacy! Had the United States continued diplomatic pressure Hussein would have never had sanctions lifted, even if every nation-state in the world wanted to since the US holds Security Council veto authority.

It's understandable that Bush/Cheney cannot admit to the war being a mistake since it would effectively dismantle their election bid, but they should reconsider their responses to bad news because it serves no other purpose than to make them seem increasingly desperate and petty. Give it up, guys, this is a dead end for you and sometimes no amount of spin can create an escape route.