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Vice President Takes on Iraq War Critics
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday maintained the Bush administration’s attack on Democratic criticism of the Iraq war, blasting senators for suggesting intelligence was misused to promote the invasion, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 16). Cheney, speaking in Washington, said the debate over the use of intelligence has taken “a wild departure” from usual political discourse. “The suggestion that’s been made by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States or any other members of this administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city,” he said. “What we’re hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war,” he said. “The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out,” Cheney added. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), who lost the 2004 presidential election to Bush, said it was difficult to find an official “with less credibility on Iraq than Vice President Cheney.” “If the Bush White House cared as much about our troops as they do about their plummeting political fortunes, they would at last offer a clear strategy for success in Iraq and work to bring home 20,000 troops after the successful Iraqi elections,” Kerry said in a statement (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 16). A Knight Ridder news service examination found that some of the criticisms lobbed by the White House at Democrats are not completely true. Knight Ridder reported that the administration’s claim that Congress and foreign governments believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction cannot be challenged. However, other statements made by administration officials in recent days are dubious, according to Knight Ridder. For example, while President George W. Bush’s claim that an investigatory commission failed to find any indication of “politicization” of WMD intelligence is true, that panel and others did not look at how the White House presented intelligence when selling the war, or whether the administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat. “Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policy-makers, and all of us were agreed that was not part of our inquiry,” said Laurence Silberman, co-chairman of the presidential commission on WMD intelligence. Knight Ridder also reported that Bush’s statement that “more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate — who had access to the same intelligence — voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power” was false. Lawmakers did not see the President’s Daily Brief, an intelligence roundup presented to Bush each morning before the war by former CIA Director George Tenet. Also, Cheney and his staff viewed raw intelligence reports at the CIA, received briefings and participated in unusual back and forth talks with analysts, according to Knight Ridder. Further, White House and Defense Department officials received information directly from the Iraqi National Congress, which intelligence services believed to be less than credible (see GSN, May 24, 2004). The president’s assertion last week that “intelligence agencies around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein” is also suspect, according to Knight Ridder. Foreign intelligence agencies did believe Iraq was hiding WMD capabilities, but possibly not actual weapons, and with the exception of the United Kingdom few believed that Iraq posed an imminent threat or had links to the Sept. 11 attacks or to Islamic terrorism, Knight Ridder reported. France led a collation of nations in calling for increased weapons inspections before the war began. Finally, Knight Ridder challenged national security adviser Stephen Hadley’s statement last week that the Clinton administration and Congress in 1998 saw Iraq as a threat based upon the same intelligence the Bush administration looked considered. “Congress, in 1998 authorized, in fact, the use of force based on that intelligence,” Hadley said. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also this week seemed to connect this authorization with President Bill Clinton’s order for bombing of military facilities and suspected weapons sites in Iraq. Congress did pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, backing regime change and providing $97 million for aid in the country. Military force, however, was not authorized. Clinton ordered the bombings because Iraq violated U.N. Security Council resolutions by refusing to comply with weapons inspections, according to Knight Ridder (Kuhnhenn/Landay, Knight Ridder/Macon Telegraph, Nov. 17).
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