This editorial in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune is hard-hitting and long - it fills 2 full columns on their editorial page. That newspaper's editorials are normally 1/3 to 1/2 as long.
Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial: Truth - Too little of it on IraqDick Cheney is not a public relations man for the Bush administration, not a spinmeister nor a political operative. He's the vice president of the United States, and when he speaks in public, which he rarely does, he owes the American public the truth.
In his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Cheney fell woefully short of truth. On the subject of Iraq, the same can be said for President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But Cheney is the latest example of administration mendacity, and therefore a good place to start in holding the administration accountable. The list:
- Cheney repeated the mantra that the nation ignored the terrorism threat before Sept. 11. In fact, President Bill Clinton and his counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, took the threat very seriously, especially after the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. By December, Clarke had prepared plans for a military operation to attack Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, go after terrorist financing and work with police officials around the world to take down the terrorist network.
<snip>
- Cheney said that "we don't know" if there is a connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. He's right only in the sense that "we don't know" if the sun will come up tomorrow. But all the evidence available says it will -- and that Iraq was not involved in Sept. 11.
<snip>
- In trying to make that link, Cheney baldly asserted that Iraq is the "geographic base" for those who struck the United States on Sept. 11. No, that would be Afghanistan.
Sacramento Bee Editorial: Cheney's 69% solution; Iraq-terrorist links live on in his mind Vice President Dick Cheney emerged from an undisclosed location the other day for a rare interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." The main topic was U.S. policy in Iraq, which the vice president defended.
But Cheney's real aim seemed to be more narrow. Fourteen months before the next election, he sought to reassure Americans, 69 percent of whom, according to a recent opinion poll, believe the previous Iraqi regime had something to do with the 9/11 attacks, that they were right.
Among other things, Cheney resurrected a previous claim about an alleged meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence operative and 9/11 chief hijacker Mohamed Atta. Never mind that evidence shows Atta was in Virginia on the day in question, that the Iraqi agent -- now in custody -- says the meeting never happened and that U.S. and other intelligence agencies say they found no evidence the meeting took place.
Boston Globe Editorial: Cheney's misspeaking streakThree years later, the stealth grandfather
is the hired gun. His harm to America's integrity is now incalculable.
On "Meet the Press" last Sunday, Cheney claimed that the White House has "learned more and more that there was a relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of his pieces of "evidence" was the old report of a meeting in Prague in early 2001 between Mohamed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 airplane hijackers, and what Cheney described as "a senior Iraqi intelligence official."
The Czech government began backing away from the claim almost as soon as it was made. American and British intelligence agencies never found any hard evidence of a meeting. The claim became a dubious if not a dead issue in intelligence circles more than a year ago. The more likely possibility, according to intelligence records, was that Atta was in Virginia Beach, casing naval facilities.
Cornell Daily Sun Editorial: Bush Brings No Huddle Defense
Still, it was particularly unsettling to hear the man who loudly predicted that the Iraq military effort would take "weeks, not months" spend most of his interview with Tim Russert refusing to give substantive answers. Cheney didn't exactly address many of Russert's concerns.
For instance, Russert asked if there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11. "We don't know." Is there a link between the Saudis and Sept. 11? "I don't want to speculate on that." Some say 140 Saudis left the U.S. the day after the attacks. "I don't know." We have way more troops in Iraq now than you predicted. "We couldn't know precisely what would happen." How much monetary support might we get from other sources in this effort? "I don't have a final dollar figure." Will Bush ask for more than the $87 billion? "I can't say that." Why are Halliburton's contracts given without a bidding process (Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton before becoming VP)? "I have no idea."
on edit: fix a link
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