Cheney: War critics are 'opportunists'

Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democratic senators who allege the Bush administration distorted intelligence to justify the war in Iraq of making "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." Cheney said Democrats who say they were misled by the administration are "making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war." The criticism, Cheney said, threatens to undermine the morale of U.S. troops who are risking their lives while "a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie." "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone," Cheney said. "But we're not going to sit back and let them rewrite history."

Let me take this opportunity to say - what a tool.

Three points:

A) Cheney is re-writing history by suggesting a false dichotomy: either people believed that Iraq had massive stockpiles of WMDs he intended to use against us and immediate action was required or they thought absolutely no threat existed. It was entirely possible to believe that there might be WMDs but still retain substantial doubts and inspections were needed. It was entirely possible to support the use of force resolution in the belief that a threat of force could actually prevent the necessity of war.

B) Yes the troops are risking their lives to protect us from a threat that Cheney now tacitly admits never existed. Dick "there is no doubt that Iraq has WMDs" owes those troops an explanation, not an evasion.

C) The 'everyone else was wrong' defense is no defense. Not everyone was wrong. The millions of anti-war demonstrators got it right. If a substantial number of Democrats signed on to the administration's lie, then they need to admit the error or step aside. Come election time, we need to reward those people who got it right and replace those who got it wrong. The debate over what was known and when it was known is not really the point. The point is what was knowable. And at the time of the invasion it was knowable that there was not a sufficient prima facie case that Iraq posed a credible and imminent threat to the US. I knew it, just from paying attention. So it is not unreasonable to expect that our political leaders would know that too. Whether they did and lied or really believed what they were saying is a distinction without a difference. Cheney is right about one thing. This isn't about the past, it's about the future and the competency of judgement of those who control the machinery of war.


Cheney: War critics are 'opportunists'
He says senators of both parties saw Hussein as a threat
- Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post
Thursday, November 17, 2005

Washington -- Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democratic senators who allege the Bush administration distorted intelligence to justify the war in Iraq of making "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

Speaking at a Wednesday night dinner of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a conservative research organization, Cheney said Democrats who say they were misled by the administration are "making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war."

The criticism, Cheney said, threatens to undermine the morale of U.S. troops who are risking their lives while "a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie."

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone," Cheney said. "But we're not going to sit back and let them rewrite history."

Cheney's remarks are part of a White House attempt to rebut critics who are becoming increasingly vocal as public opinion has turned against the war. The growing skepticism over the conflict has contributed to the decline in President's Bush's approval ratings, which have fallen to record lows.

Cheney's remarks came on the heels of two speeches by Bush, who suggested in remarks Friday and before troops in Alaska on Monday that Democratic critics are rewriting the history of the run-up to the war. Those critics "are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy," Bush said. "And that's irresponsible."

In a sign of their growing concern about the war, Republican senators joined Democrats on Tuesday in passing a measure requiring the White House to provide more information on the progress of the war, while pressing that discernible steps be taken toward troop withdrawals.

Meanwhile, leading Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have accused the administration of skewing intelligence to win support for the war in the first place -- a charge the White House has heatedly denied.

"There was broad-based bipartisan agreement that Saddam Hussein was a threat ... that he violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and that, in a post- 9/11 world, we couldn't afford to take the word of a dictator who had a history of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs, who had excluded weapons inspectors ... who had committed mass murder," Cheney said. "Those are the facts."

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