Cheney Says It's Too Soon to Tell on Iraqi Arms (O'Neill Remarks)

[kskiska]

Vice President Cheney says he believes "the jury's still out" on whether Iraq had the chemical and biological weapons that were the Bush administration's justification for war.

"I am a long way at this stage from concluding that somehow there was some fundamental flaw in our intelligence," Cheney said in an interview with USA TODAY and the Los Angeles Times.

On O'Neill:

In the interview, Cheney spoke publicly for the first time about O'Neill's criticism of the administration in The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind. In the book, O'Neill describes President Bush as detached and asserts that attacking Iraq was a priority even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

(snip)

"I was a big advocate of his, without question, and it's turned out to be a big disappointment," Cheney said. "We were friends. It's one of those things that happens periodically — you put a round peg in a square hole, and it didn't work."

Cheney said he thought O'Neill would do a good job because of his experience as deputy budget director under President Ford and his success as CEO of Alcoa.

"Why it failed? I don't know. I don't want to get into that," Cheney said. "Paul has had his say. I disagree with his analysis, obviously. But he's had his day. I feel badly for him, to some extent, that he has ended his career on this note. That's his choice."

more…
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+Cheney+says+it%27s+too+soon+to+tell+on+Iraqi+arms&expire=&urlID=8972884&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2Fexecutive%2Fpresident%2F2004-01-19-cheney-weapons_x.htm&partnerID=1660

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Did the reporter laugh at him?

Cheaney needs a little green beret if he is going to play the part of "Baghdad Bob"

Honestly, does he really think that this denial route is working?
If he keeps it up it might get a lot worse for him.

[buckeye1]

9. Hush yo mouth.

This butt ugly rules. If you find yourself on the Supreme Court Cheney will invite you for duck hunting.

[cthrumatrix]

17. O'Neill's book ahs shared in the truth on this "cabal" ...that's was he is

disappointed with ...that we know about their lies...his words "deficits don't matter"...the 911 planning..that shrub manages like a "puppet"...and more.

O"neill was a man of courage...truth is truth. AND this news will hurt them...drip drip drip.

BTW...nice investigative piece USA Today...way to ask the hard questions (Sarcasm off)

[TXDemGal]

2. Of COURSE it's too soon

the BFEE hasn't planted them yet. :evilgrin:

[peterh]

27. Exactly…..

Blair has resigned himself to the fact that they don’t exist any longer….Kay has gone home to find another job….most of the people from his unit have left also, leaving just a small percentage waiting, perhaps…..for the order….

[Purrfessor]

3. I have to agree with Cheney..........

<sarcasm> it's always a terrible shame when someone such as O'Neil ends his career by telling the truth. </sarcasm>

Cheney is a real major league a**hole. "We were friends," he says of O'Neil. Obviously, anyone who puts his country above his hunger for power and money is no friend of Cheney's.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. "the jury's still out"????

A year ago, this pheasant-bagging fucker was declaring as fact that Saddam had reconstituted nuclear weapons!

[hagbardceline]

7. well

just about all the most powerful elected Democrats were saying it, too.

The UN security council passed resolution 1441, which said

"Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"
(http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm)

Theres a lot to criticize about Iraq, but what you mentioned isn't a credible argument, we will lose if we come at it from that angle!

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. Ok, 1441

Show us where the non-compliant weapons are then, and we will see what argument is "credible".

The only reason any "powerful elected Democrats" were saying anything is because they were being lied to by the rodent resident.

Did somebody say freeper??

[lefty_mcduff]

12. Well, let's trot out the non-compliant weapons

..and we'll talk. Remember, the UN couldn't find any, and missles that were (marginally) over the distance threshold were bulldozed in the days leading up to the invasion. Guess you missed the Security Council meetings were this was discussed. Guess you also forget that junior promised to put the invasion to a vote at the UB because everyone was going to have to 'show their cards'. He didn't.

[leesa]

23. They were compliant and you are certainly NOT a "we"

[Skittles]

34. we will lose?

please define WE

[DisgustedDemocrat]

5. Yeah right. The jury is still out.

:eyes:

[proud patriot]

6. Arrogant Bastard

"I feel badly for him, to some extent, that he has ended his
career on this note. That's his choice."

:wow: :grr: :mad: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[AndyTiedye]

15. Sounds Rather Like a Threat, Doesn't It?

[0007]

30. They gonna cut his tongue out?

[Entente]

10. The jury died of pneumonia

being "still" out too long in the rain.

Someone should inform Cheney.

[Wwagsthedog]

11. This is a pretty obvious threat from cheney on O'Neil.

Who is to say that Paul's "political?" career is over as a result of the book? What if he wants a job with some kind of fiscally & socially concervative but honest republican or Democrat administration in the future?

[baby_bear]

13. O'Neill just might get a damn good political job in the future

In the meantime, I hope he stays off smallish airplanes.

s_m

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. "he's had his day" almost sounds like a threat

for that matter, Cheney kind of sounded like he was eulogizing him.

This statement was the worst:"Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" he said. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."

[Zhade]

16. That lying traitor - he's fucking GLOATING!

He's slapping all of us in the face with a remark like that!

[are_we_united_yet]

18. Sure Dick

We believe you.

[underpants]

19. I'm glad he steared clear of issuing an opinion on the intelligence

because he could have said something that put the blame on them for not having the right information. I'm glad he took the high road.

[bagnana]

24. He is framing the argument

If wmd's don't exist it was because of a "failure of intelligence." No. It was a distortion of the intelligence.

[kskiska]

20. "Who is Dick, really?"

I'm almost halfway through the Suskind-O'Neill bookand the most chilling words I've read so far were,

For a wide community of intellectual pragmatists, who had served Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and who formed the core of old-line, traditional Republicanism, a query now took hold: Who is Dick, really?

O'Neill is beginning to get the picture after Dick, stealthily, crushed his, and Christie Whitman's environmental effort.

[htuttle]

21. The Magic 8-Ball Vice President

"Too Soon To Tell"
"Ask Again Later"
"The Future is Unclear"
"Try Again"

[underpants]

22. And an 8-ball president

:snort:

[suegeo]

36. Good one htuttle

As for snarl's claim that the economy is getting better, well, big Dick, where's the surplus Clinton left you?

Do I get back the money that your creepy CEO friends stole out of my 201k by cooking the books?

No, I guess not. I'll just sit around and wait to get trickled on by trickle-down economics.

[Loonman]

25. Whatever you say, Dick, you filthy liar

LIAR!

[Grins]

28. More lies

"Cheney suggested that biological weapons are hard to find because they could be produced on short notice. "The stuff is perishable and doesn't last very long anyway," he said.

WHAT????? That news to me!

If it didn't last that long, and our and the UN's inspectors were watching everything and found nothing - then why go into a war for something that was going to perish anyway? If it's perishable, how do you get it from Baghdad to the streets of New York?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's properly stored (and Saddam's criminal thugs wern't stupid enough not to have good storage) it should last quite a while. Besides, they had to have storage, Powell said they had thousands of liters of the stuff in his lies to the UN. It had to be somewhere. And storing powdered anthrax shouldn't be that difficult. Hell, you can even mail it!! The guys poisoning the Japanese with Sarin gas a few years ago didn't seem to have a storage problem. And I don't recall the US Army considering it a problem with storage, and we had thousands of barrels of it.

[htuttle]

35. Maybe you should learn about a topic before pronouncing 'more lies'....

Read this link by an expert in NBC counter-terrorism (that's 'Nuclear Biological Chemical', not the television network):

http://www.sdari.org/documents/v8n1weapons.html
(found in all of 10 seconds via Google)

The only so-called 'WMD's that are not perishable are powdered, dried anthrax (of which we've found NONE WHATSOEVER outside the stuff that was mailed to congress, and that was 99.9999% certain to have come from US military labs -- it used the exact same drying agents), and uranium/plutonium.

You can 'surmise' and 'deduce' whatever the hell you want, but it doesn't change the facts. Chemical weapons do NOT keep very long, no matter what the technique.

BTW, those thousands of barrels of chemical weapons the US is trying to get rid of here in the states are still toxic and dangerous. It's just that they would not be an effective chemical weapons agent anymore. There are plenty of toxic and dangerous chemicals, but few of them are effective weapons agents.


on edit: Please excuse the confrontational tone of this post -- it's not directed at the previous poster. I'm just a little frustated about the misinformation about so-called 'WMDs' that's been lathered on so intensively....

[mbperrin]

26. Time to revise the old Nixon mantra: "2004: Dick Cheney before

he dicks you!"

[CBHagman]

29. The Groundhog without a Heart Speaks!

Yes, folks, it's time for that subterranean creature to emerge from his hiding place and turn those cold, beady eyes on the press...and lie like a Persian rug.

Did anyone else see the chart in The Washington Post today about the administration's claims about WMD and the actual results from searches? Pretty damning stuff.

It kills me that for months conservative pundits and even some members of Congress told us all that opponents of war were going to be very embarrassed when the Kay report came out. Well, there's egg on faces, but they're not the faces we were told to expect.

And there are heads up rear ends, but they're... oh, never mind.

[cthrumatrix]

31. bravo..bravo.... (no offense to the groundhog I assume?)

[Ratty]

32. Uh oh. I don't like the sound of this ...

And the timing. For awhile the administration seemed to be backing off the WMD fiasco. Now here's Cheney hinting that something might still be "discovered" yet. The timing sucks big time too. Just in time for a November surprise. If the timing is too good, and the "find" too convenient, maybe it will backfire on them.

[htuttle]

33. Ha...

Are you still under the illusion that the Bush administration is competent?

I learned the truth of that one some time ago -- they got NUTTIN! All they have is this talk, innuendo, suggestion, etc... That is how they convinced so many people that WMD have already been found (when NOTHING has been found), and that Iraq was somehow involved in the 9/11 attacks (which it wasn't).

By vaguely hinting, etc...they can avoid the scrutiny that making an actual statement would possibly entail, and nobody ever calls them on it. Bigtime.

They aren't deviously competent. Devious, sure, however they are incompetent as hell. The only way they've gotten as far as they have is that they've had a HUGE amount of money to play with (most of it ours), and they have no qualms about using it as needed to mold consensus reality to their wishes. When they run up against a situation that money alone cannot solve, they are fucked (cf. Iraq, WTO fines, FTAA collapse, etc...).

[TankLV]

37. Dateline: January 19, 3004: Emperor "Pumpkin" bush* IV says it's too

early to tell on Iraqi Arms.

Says "those pesky arms could have been shipped out of the galaxy by now!"

"After all, Iraq is a pretty big place - bigger than the Capitol of the Empire of Amerikkka, Crawford, even!" on his way to another fund-raiser for his next, uncontested election.