Hiding Behind the Soldiery Again, a Lying Sack of Excrement

VP Dick Cheney continues polluting the public discourse with lies, damned lies, deliberate lies, lies aforethought, casual lies, strategic lies, and just plain old "putting the lie in unreliability." He has an habitual approach to mendacity that would be excessive in the average New York or Los Angeles PR handler. All the while he claims only to defend our men and women in uniform overseas whose obscene and unnecessary deaths he both caused and shelters behind. Yet it is important to recall exactly how believable a source he is. Below is an excerpt of a 20-month-old Democratic Congressional attempt to keep the record relatively straight.

Vice President Cheney

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. Some of the misleading statements made by Vice President Cheney included the following:

• “[W]e do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.”114

• Saddam Hussein “had an established relationship with al Qaeda.”115

• “[W]e believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”116

114 Meet the Press, supra note 38.
115 White House, Remarks by the Vice President to the Heritage Foundation (Oct. 10, 2003).
116 Meet the Press, supra note 20.


pp. 27 & 28 of "IRAQ ON THE RECORD: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S PUBLIC STATEMENTS ON IRAQ" PREPARED FOR REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM — MINORITY STAFF, SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION, MARCH 16, 2004

Thanks to http://americablog.blogspot.com for enabling me to find the original Waxman report.