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-- Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link

Cheney blasts media on al Qaeda-Iraq link

Is it me or should Cheney just shut the hell up or something?
He's already viewed as a pompus ass- this isnt helping much...


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday the evidence is "overwhelming" that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, and he said media reports suggesting that the 9/11 commission has reached a contradictory conclusion were "irresponsible."

"There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC's "Capitol Report."

"It goes back to the early '90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials."

"The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework."

Members of 9/11 commission found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks carried out by al Qaeda hijackers, and they concluded that there was "no collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, the network's leader, according to details of its findings disclosed Wednesday at a public hearing.

However, the commission also found that bin Laden did "explore possible cooperation with Iraq."

Cheney told CNBC that cooperation included a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service going to Sudan, where bin Laden was based prior to moving his operations to Afghanistan, to train al Qaeda members in bomb-making and document forgery.

Both Cheney and President Bush are strongly disputing suggestions that the commission's conclusion that there were no Iraqi fingerprints on the 9/11 attacks contradicts statements they made in the run-up to the Iraq war about links between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Bush, who has said himself that there is no evidence Iraq was involved in 9/11, sought to explain the distinction Thursday, saying that while the administration never "said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated" with Iraqi help, "we did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," the president said. (Full story)

In his CNBC interview, Cheney went a bit further. Asked if Iraq was involved in 9/11, he said, "We don't know."

"What the commission says is they can't find evidence of that," he said. "We had one report, which is a famous report on the Czech intelligence service, and we've never been able to confirm or to knock it down."

The uncorroborated Czech report, which has been widely disputed, alleged that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague before the attacks.

Asked if he knows information that the 9/11 commission does not know, Cheney replied, "Probably."

I thought Cheney resigned or was fired. Isn't what people do after major fuck ups?

"The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework."

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo "The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework."

funny he should say that- maybe if bush and cheney would have done some homework we would have never ended up invading Iraq.

quote:

Originally posted by xKaoSx funny he should say that- maybe if bush and cheney would have done some homework we would have never ended up invading Iraq.

^^

Update: Cheney is "probably" full of shit:

9/11 Commission Finds Cheney making unsubstantiated claims.

SHOCK!

quote:

Cheney Had No New Data on Saddam, Al Qaeda-Panel Tue Jul 6, 7:27 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo! By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Sept. 11 commission, which reported no evidence of collaborative links between Iraq (news - web sites) and al Qaeda, said on Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) had no more information than commission investigators to support his later assertions to the contrary. The 10-member bipartisan panel investigating the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington said it reached its conclusion after reviewing available transcripts of Cheney's public remarks on the subject. The vice president has asserted long-standing links between the former Iraqi president and Osama Bin Laden's Islamist militant network. "The 9-11 Commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9-11 attacks," the commission said in a statement. The vice president's office had no immediate comment. Nor were commission Chairman Thomas Kean or Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton available to elaborate on the panel's statement. Al Qaeda is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people and prompted President Bush (news - web sites) to launch his war on terrorism with an invasion that ousted Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s former Taliban regime. Assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and could be prepared to provide chemical or biological agents to al Qaeda for attacks on the United States were a main justification for Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. No such weapons have been found, and recent opinion polls have suggested growing public skepticism about the Bush administration's reasons for launching a war in which 870 U.S. soldiers have died and nearly 5,400 have been wounded. The commission called White House claims about links between Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and al Qaeda into question on June 11 with a staff report that found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the Iraqi leader and al Qaeda before the day of the attacks. But Bush and his top aides stood firm, with Cheney forcefully maintaining that evidence depicting an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks may yet emerge. "The notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda just simply is not true," the vice president said in an interview with CNBC. The New York Times later reported that Kean and Hamilton hoped to see any additional information Cheney had on the subject. As part of the White House reaction to the Sept. 11 commission's report, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) who said she believed the panel was actually denying that Saddam had control over al Qaeda. Kean and Hamilton flatly rejected her interpretation. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../iraq_cheney_dc

Was it ever mentioned about Cheney saying the F word on the senate floor?..

quote:

Originally posted by LiquidX Was it ever mentioned about Cheney saying the F word on the senate floor?..

No, but it was pretty funny. He certainly didn't deny it.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka No, but it was pretty funny. He certainly didn't deny it.

HeH. Everyone on the senate heard it.. there was no way he would have heh.

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