Between GM, Tiller, Cheney advocating tolerance for gays, the Obamas night on the town and who knows what else this little BOMBSHELL exploded and nobody noticed:
Cheney Says There Was No Iraq Link to 9/11 Attacks
There's a REAL headline I bet you never thought you'd see.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney disavowed intelligence he once cited [emphasis added] to suggest that then-Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein collaborated with al-Qaeda to stage the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cheney said today that information by the Central Intelligence Agency of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda on Sept. 11 "turned out not to be true."
You are probably wondering what venue could be so remote that he could admit to this humiliating repudiation of everything he has been saying and still avoid a firestorm of controvery? Are you sitting down? Good....He was speaking at the National Press Club!!!!!
This is like the head of a vigilante lynch mob finally admitting... uh... we got the wrong guy. But hey, Stuff Happens... back to work!
At long last there is nothing....absolutely nothing.... to support any of the claims that were made for invading Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, killing more Americans than died on 9/11, wounding tens of thousands of Americans, running up almost 1,000,000,000,000.00 in additional debt, and on and on and on....
And he acts like he doesn't expect to go to jail for this? In Korea, politicians throw themselves off cliffs for less.
Cheney is admitting the evidence the tortured people to get "turned out not to be true." Are you #@@#!%%^ kidding me? That's it?
Around the 10 minute mark he is asked about this and says, amongst other things
"I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm [emphasis added] that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true."
Yet he is
"Proud of the decisions we made."
He never saw information to confirm what he was saying to justify a war? I'm so enraged at his callous disregard for life I am honestly at a loss for words...
UPDATE:
As some in comments note, this is similar to the sort of denials being floated in September 2004 after Bush and Blair were directly asked at a press conference in the White House about this link and Bush denied a direct link. But here is the new part in today's speech:
I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm [emphasis added] that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true."
- He admits he never saw any evidence to support the claims he was making in 2002 and 2003. Yet, at that time he was adamant they had "solid" intelligence.
- "We had the reporting for a while" is true... because they were reporting WHAT HE WAS SAYING....
- It did not "eventually" turn out to be false. It was ALWAYS false.
He is still trying to parse his words to avoid a conviction. But he is hanging himself with his own words. You can't admit you never saw any evidence for all the "solid intelligence" you claimed as justification for going to war. That's like saying "We claimed she was pregnant with my child for a while, but it turns out I never had sex with her."
The news here is not that he lied. Many (including me) knew this claimed connection was a lie. However, as recently as 2007, Cheney was still asserting Saddam and al Qaida were actively working together. Even though Pentagon reports denied his claim. As the linked report notes, the mistaken reporting didn't originate in the CIA... it originated with DOUG FEITH who worked at Cheney and Wolfowitz's behest in the Office of Special Plans.
OSP was The Lie Factory Kwiatkowski exposed years ago. These were the guys who doctored the intelligence to fit the story Bush, Rice, Rummy and Cheney wanted to push.
All the old charges still stick. The difference now is Cheney has blatantly contradicted himself. He admits he NEVER saw any evidence to support the claims he made; claims he said were backed by "solid" intelligence. I think we now know why they were so hot to torture people. They wanted to corroborate the lies they had manufactured at the Office of Special Plans.
UPDATE II
Because of several comments that this is "old news" etc, I would point out that the admission there was NEVER evidence to support the connection is important because of the Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq
The short title of that enabling legislation is pretty clear who Bush was authorized to attack. Now consider why he was given that authorization in the first place. One reason:
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Either this means:
a) we attacked Iraq because they were a terrorist organization, or
b) they were a bunch of international terrorists, or
c) we attacked Iraq because of their involvement with al Qaeda.
Remember, Iraq was a sovereign nation prior to our invasion. People can label a nation a lot of things but you can't declare them terrorists. By every legal definition, sovereign nations cannot be terrorists. That is important.
That leaves you with only one interpretation of the three listed options.
One reason we invaded the nation of Iraq and removed their government because the President determined the nation's government had "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
If no one in congress believed the claim that Iraq was involved with 9/11 why put that in the enabling legislation? For fun? Because they have a minimum number of words they need to make it a real Act of Congress? No. It's in there because they were told there was evidence even though Cheney now admits there NEVER was evidence. Not bad evidence, not faulty evidence, NEVER ANY EVIDENCE. In short, we went to war on a lie and Cheney admits he NEVER had evidence to support it. And he knew that at the time.