Cheney Justifies, Continues Lies About Iraq’s WMDs

From today’s mailbag comes this from J.R.:

That “The War” is bogged down is not factual. The war is over. It was very quick, even by the hasty and shallow judgement of the young. Now it is a remodel job. That people think US is in Iraq for humanitarian reasons is reasonable, being that is why we are there … The 60% that support G. Bush know you walk that road, too. Education of you, us and the Iraqi people is the solution, not cutting down things you don’t understand, that you lump into one fantastic conspiracy theory. The truth is much simpler.

Yes, the truth is simple, but J.R. doesn’t have a clue. The war is anything but over; if anything, it began with the fall of Baghdad. Saddam & Co. knew that they’d never be able to defend themselves from a U.S. military onslught, so they never tried. They planned a protracted war of resistance against a clueless occupier. Unfortunately for us, it’s going even better than expected (from the Iraqi p.o.v.) because we’ve managed to turn ourselves into Muslim Enemy No. 1. Good job, Governor Bush! You’ve really made us safer now!

Yeah, the war’s over…except for the guys getting killed and separated from their limbs every single day. Yeah, we’re there purely for humanitarian reasons…except for the oil and the no-bid reconstruction contracts to Administration-connected companies. Except, except, except…why do people smart enough to own a computer and compose a coherent sentence on it believe such transparently false BS?

Maybe because they’re listening to evil bastards like He Who Gives Press Conferences Hours After Major Heart Surgery:

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney argued Friday that critics of the Iraq war advocate a policy of inaction that could risk hundreds of thousands of American deaths in another terrorist attack.

Cheney offered no new evidence that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had posed an imminent threat, as the administration contended before the war. Instead, without drawing a direct link between Saddam and the Sept. 11 attacks, he cast the Iraq invasion as a crucial component of a Bush administration-led battle to prevent even deadlier future attacks.

That strategy would include taking action against governments that could help terrorists gain weapons of mass destruction.

“That possibility, the ultimate nightmare, could bring devastation to our country on a scale we have never experienced,” he said. “Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a single day of horror.”

Here, at a glance, is Bush-Cheney’s twisted association of Iraq with the 9/11 attacks. Yes, a government could one day give terrorists WMDs to be used against the United States. But not Iraq.

Because, Mr. Lieutenant Governor, IRAQ DIDN’T HAVE WMDs. It would be pretty friggin’ hard for Iraq to give something they didn’t have to anyone. Oh, and: IRAQ DIDN’T HAVE ANY LINKS TO AL QAEDA OR OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS.

Administraton liars say that Iraq had links to “terrorist groups.” They don’t specify which ones because they mean Hezbollah and Hamas, groups that have never launched attacks against targets outside Israel. Those groups are clearly a danger to Israel, but implying that they plan to blow up New York City is beyond a stretch–there’s just no reason to believe it.

If a government that DID have WMDs (say, North Korea, which we’re ignoring) decided to give WMDs to terrorist groups with which it had links (Pakistan-Al Qaeda, for instance, but we’re ignoring that too), then we’d be screwed. But Bush’s not interested in protecting us from these real threats.

Cheney largely ignored the continuing violence around Iraq and the lack of broader international help for the U.S. mission there, mentioning only in passing in a 25-minute speech the “difficulties we knew would occur.”

He offered a point-by-point rebuttal to criticisms:

_A team of U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq led by David Kay has so far found none of the suspected weapons of mass destruction that were a main Bush rationale for war. But Cheney focused on other portions of an interim report from Kay that suggested — but did not provide definitive evidence — that Iraq might have had weapons or weapons programs.

The examples Cheney cited included: the discovery of Iraqi intelligence laboratory and safe houses containing equipment suitable for biological and chemical weapons research; a prison lab complex possibly used to test biological weapons on humans; a vial of live botulinum bacteria stored since 1993 in an Iraqi scientist’s refrigerator which could make a biological weapon but showed no signs of having been used; research on Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemmorrhagic Fever, neither considered traditional biological warfare agents; and design work for prohibited long-range missiles.

“Taken together, they … provide a compelling case for the use of force against Saddam Hussein,” Cheney said of the findings. “The United States made our position clear: We could not accept the grave danger of Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies turning weapons of mass destruction against us or our friends and allies.”

Really. Were the American people told that they were going to lose hundreds of young men and hundreds of billions of dollars over the “possible” lab and a vial of 10-year-old biotoxins? That’s not how I remember it.

Cheney mocked those who have questioned whether the danger from Saddam was as immediate as Bush claimed in prewar days. “As long as George W. Bush is president of the United States, this country will not permit gathering threats to become certain tragedies,” he said.

Here’s Bush’s vile policy of preemption, that justifies attacks against just about any country we feel like it. This is part and parcel of the policy of the neo-conservatives who dominate the Administration. Know them, fear them, remove them next fall.

Despite some fears that the war stirred up more terrorism than it prevented, Cheney said that both Saddam’s and terrorists’ hostility to America “has long been evident.”

This from a real patriot like Dick Cheney, a man who evaded the draft during Vietnam and is destroying fundamental American values, like not invading other nations unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Cheney also responded to criticism he described as advocating that the United States “may not act without unanimous international consent” when its security is threatened — even though virtually no opponents have taken that position.

“It comes down to a choice between action that assures our security and inaction that allows dangers to grow,” he said. “President Bush declined the course of inaction, and the results are there for all to see.”

Those results, he said, include empty torture chambers, new schools, reopened hospitals, improving infrastructure, progress toward democracy and no danger of an alliance between Saddam and terrorists.

Funny, that’s not what Iraqis say. And there never was any such danger, because Saddam and Islamist groups were mortal enemies. Cheney knows that.

Amid the concerted White House public relations offensive, the critics were not quiet. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said the administration has “badly misled” the American people.

“We’ve now learned that Saddam was not involved in the September 11th attacks, that there was no strong evidence Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that presented an imminent threat to the United States, that Iraq did not try to purchase nuclear materials from Africa, that Saddam was nowhere near developing nuclear weapons, and that the Bush administration had no real plan for reconstruction once Saddam was gone,” Dean said.

Just so.