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.
Article comments
1 - Big Time Patriot
"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."
More intriguing questions, yes. I mean with our interests piqued by such conundrums as illuminated by this report, the illustrious administration could not be expected to constrain our ardent curiosity with mere weapons inspections? We needed the forceful summation of information provided by an inquiry accompanied by tanks and soldiers.
2 - Ascribe
More reasons for the invasion include that Saddam;
Didn't rewind rental tape
Mixed recyclables
Wrote a book
Reads books
Throws like a girl
Is too tall
Fuzzy math
Prevented OBGYNs from practicing their love
Wanted us to pass a global test
Is a BIG GAY
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3 - Hal Pawluk
I like Cheney's reason best: Black is White.