One of the overlooked aspects of Dick Cheney’s speech today was his extensive linking of 9/11 to weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear weapons), Saddam Hussein, and Iraq.
In addition to his full-throated defense of torture, Cheney described the national security context as one in which they foremost fear was "a 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction."
Cheney said al Qaeda was seaking nuclear weapons and that because Iraq had "known ties" to terrorists, the Bush administration focused on Iraq because it was a regime that "might transfer such weapons to terrorists."
That Cheney would once again lie about Iraq is no big surprise, but the fact that he told those lies once again during today’s speech should raise even more questions about the veracity of his torture defense.
The man is a pathological liar, and there is no reason to believe a word he says.
(Video transcript below the fold.)
Video transcript (new paragraphs represent edit points):
Right now there is considerable debate in this city about the measures our administration took to defend the American people.
Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies.
Nine-eleven caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated.
We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in.
Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and it was our job to stop it. We didn’t know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology.
We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.
Foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass - a 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction.
We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.
In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists.
I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program.
They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.
To call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims.
You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States.
For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history - not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them.