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Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Wed, 11/16/2005 - 11:08pm.
This isn't related to Olympia issues specifically, but I think it's a very important evolution in the degeneration of the Bush White House Executive Administration:
Cheney says war critics 'dishonest, reprehensible'
Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:23 PM ET
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that accusations the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war were a "dishonest and reprehensible" political ploy.

Cheney called Democrats "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

The comments were the latest salvo in an aggressive White House counterattack on war critics, launched as Democrats step up their criticism of the war and polls show declining public support for the conflict.

In rebuttal:

These are from pages 31 and 32 of the pdf version of the article (pp. 25 and 26, respectively, of the orginial,) if you care to check for yourself.

This is a congressionally commissioned audit of the executive administration's misleading statements vis a vis the war in Iraq.
This audit can be found here (linked.)

President Bush made 55 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 27 separate public statements or appearances.

Of the 55 misleading statements by President Bush, 4 claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 14 exaggerated Iraq’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 18 overstated Iraq’s chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 19 misrepresented Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.

Vice President Cheney made 51 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 25 separate public statements or appearances.

Of the 51 misleading statements by Vice President Cheney, 1 claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 22 exaggerated Iraq’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 7 overstated Iraq’s chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 21 misrepresented Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.

»

So does this mean everyone el

So does this mean everyone else made misleading statements, too?

I'm not trying to defend the situation we're in now but, for the sake of holding everyone to the same standard, it would appear anyone else who ever made a statement regarding Iraq prior to the invasion would also be at fault.

President Bush and Vice-President Cheney weren't the only two people in D.C. who were privvy enough to view intelligence.

»

This does not mean that every

This does not mean that everyone made misleading statements. Surely, the Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld cabal, et al. are not the only ones to have misled the people, and congress.

But the fact is that they did. There is direct proof that they did. And now, they are doing everything they can to distract, divert attention, and obviate that very fact.

There were others who misled. But for the most part, I hear tones of apology from the majority of congress members - maybe not the priviledged 8 who had access to the most secret information (there is a certain amount of scandal regarding this too - something about how these people were not allowed to speak out about discrepencies in the intelligence - I read about it on dailykos.) But, they are all culpable. Every last member of congress is responsible for this. And there are unfortunately very few who have spoken with sobriety, sense and modesty about this extraordinarily grave situation.

This is a page out of the Karl Rove handbook. When in trouble, the best defense is offense. The best offense is to attack your opponent's strength.

The administration's opposition has a very strong card to play in the fact that the administration misled the people, and congress to war.

Plain and simple.

»

You really should read Clarke

You really should read Clarke's "Against All Enemies." James Bamford's "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" is another good one.

Neither book is of the Michael Moore/Ann Coultier-mold and both highlight an intelligence failure that has been brewing, not a conflict created in Crawford.

»

Here's an article about Dick

»

Ah yes, CommonDreams.Maybe th

Ah yes, CommonDreams.

Maybe the article is right, I don't know? I've seen too much from that site, however, that's just off the wall. It's no better than Michael Moore or Ann Coultier.

»

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