WP: Cheney Iraq assertions "so far beyond the known universe of fact ...simply without foundation."

[BurtWorm]

Dick Armey believes Cheney deliberately lied to him, apparently out of desperation, to get him to vote for the Iraq War Resolution. (A little too late, Dickie, but thanks anyway. :eyes: )


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091503064_pf.html

Cheney Linked Hussein to Al-Qaeda, Ex-GOP House Leader Says in Book

Tuesday, September 16, 2008; A19

A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush the authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon, according to a new book by Washington Post investigative reporter Barton Gellman.

Cheney's assertions, described by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.), came in a highly classified one-on-one briefing in Room H-208, the vice president's hideaway office in the Capitol. The threat Cheney described went far beyond public statements that have been criticized for relying on "cherry-picked" intelligence of unknown reliability. There was no intelligence to support the vice president's private assertions, Gellman reports, and they "crossed so far beyond the known universe of fact that they were simply without foundation."

Armey had spoken out against the coming war, and his opposition gave cover to Democrats who feared the political costs of appearing to be weak. Armey reversed his position after Cheney told him, he said, that the threat from Iraq was actually " more imminent than we want to portray to the public at large."

Cheney said, according to Armey, that Iraq's "ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear," had been "substantially refined since the first Gulf War," and would soon result in "packages that could be moved even by ground personnel." Cheney linked that threat to Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaeda, Armey said, explaining that "we now know they have the ability to develop these weapons in a very portable fashion, and they have a delivery system in their relationship with organizations such as al-Qaeda."

"Did Dick Cheney . . . purposely tell me things he knew to be untrue?" Armey said. "I seriously feel that may be the case. . . . Had I known or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed <the war> resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it from happening."

-- Jeff Leen

[The Blue Flower]

1. This is SO hard to believe!

Did Armey include the story about falling off the turnip truck at an advanced age?

[SpiralHawk]

2. More more more republicon LIES. This need to be a Dem campaign meme

This time the lies -- once again -- are from VP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney.

But all the republicon homelanders -- including their candidates -- lie, lie, lie all the time to Americans.

Drive the truth home.

[DS1]

3. Iraq? A suitcase nuke?

Without testing one the size of a truck first? Or, actually testing one and getting away with it in secret?

Fucking idiots.