Cheney Linked Hussein to Al-Qaeda,
Ex-GOP House Leader Says in Book
Gellman:no intelligence to support VP's assertions
By Jeff Leen
Washington Post, September 16, 2008
go to original
See Article I.1 Promoting
an Illegal War of Aggression
|
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Rep. Dick Armey: the former House
majority leader now questions his vote for
the Iraq war.
source: USA Today
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A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving
President Bush the authority to wage war in late 2002
said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal
ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress
toward a suitcase nuclear weapon, according to a new
book by Washington Post investigative reporter Barton
Gellman.
Cheney's assertions, described by former House majority
leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.), came in a highly classified
one-on-one briefing in Room H-208, the vice president's
hideaway office in the Capitol. The threat Cheney
described went far beyond public statements that have
been criticized for relying on "cherry-picked"
intelligence of unknown reliability. There was no
intelligence to support the vice president's private
assertions, Gellman reports, and they "crossed
so far beyond the known universe of fact that they
were simply without foundation."
Armey had spoken out against the coming war, and
his opposition gave cover to Democrats who feared
the political costs of appearing to be weak. Armey
reversed his position after Cheney told him, he said,
that the threat from Iraq was actually "more
imminent than we want to portray to the public at
large."
Cheney said, according to Armey, that Iraq's "ability
to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly
nuclear," had been "substantially refined
since the first Gulf War," and would soon result
in "packages that could be moved even by ground
personnel." Cheney linked that threat to Hussein's
alleged ties to al-Qaeda, Armey said, explaining that
"we now know they have the ability to develop
these weapons in a very portable fashion, and they
have a delivery system in their relationship with
organizations such as al-Qaeda."
"Did Dick Cheney . . . purposely tell me things
he knew to be untrue?" Armey said. "I seriously
feel that may be the case. . . . Had I known or believed
then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed
[the war] resolution right to the bitter end, and
I believe I might have stopped it from happening."
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