Posted on 03/30/2006 6:43:13 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax
Vice President Dick Cheney predicted Wednesday that thousands of boxes of documents captured from Saddam's Hussein's former regime will show that the Iraqi dictator had a much closer relationship with Osama bin Laden than was previously known.
"I think what we'll find as we get a chance to go through and analyze these documents -- there's some 50,000 boxes of them that are now being made available here over the next few months -- that we'll see a pretty complete picture that Saddam Hussein did, in fact, deal with some pretty nefarious characters out there," Cheney told Fox News Radio's Tony Snow.
Asked if he was referring to Osama bin Laden, Cheney replied:
"Yes, we don't know the full scale of it there yet, and I don't want to make a hard and fast prediction here. But there is reporting, obviously, that we've seen over the years that there was some kind of a relationship there between the Iraqis and Osama bin Laden."
An Iraqi intelligence document ordered released by the White House two weeks ago detailed a Feb. 1995 meeting between bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence official that was personally approved by Saddam, where bin Laden requested help in conducting "joint operations" against U.S. forces then stationed in Saudi Arabia.
The document went on to note that Saddam agreed to help bin Laden with propaganda broadcasts into Saudi Arabia and that "the development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties [would] be left according to what's open based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation."
The vice president stressed that nothing in the new documents uncovered so far links Saddam to the 9/11 attacks. But he added: "That's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaida organization."
FINALLY! I was wondering how the Bush admin would beat this drum. I knew Bush wouldn't do it directly.
Oops ... Karl's not getting your pings either ... I wonder if Rove got banned in WOD thread?
I absolutely disagree. Forcefully and repeatedly point out whatever proof they have that Osama and Saddam are linked. Sure, release the rest of the docs as backing evidence, but find and point out the "smoking gun" proof first.
Instead we get a dump of documents for Joe Citizen and the ever-curious (HA!) mainstream media to sift through, looking for needles in haystacks. That's ridiculous.
Whoever is running White House communication, and, to be honest, overall strategy, should be fired ASAP.
The veep would make a fine president but the Demonrats and leftist press have demonized him to the degree that he ranks lower than GWB in the polls. He is considered venal and mean by about 65% of the electorate, if one is to believe the polls. He is not that old (66) and in better health than he is credited with. But given the foregoing, there is zero chance he would run.
I hope Cheney reconsiders and runs for President in 08.
Sorry Bushbot, did I write something that didn't fit with your programming?
I don't seem to recall the Reagan medicare bill. Could you remind me? And of course, Reagan had a Republican majority in Congress - oh wait.
Often when someone cites terror ties, a doubter uses this response: "If this were true, wouldn't the administration be Shouting It From The Rooftops?" (For some reason, that exact phrase is always used - Shouting It From The Rooftops.)
Well, here's Cheney, saying there was a connection. I don't know if he's "S.I.F.T.R." (tm) but he's there in the mainstream media saying there was a connection. What the hell else is he supposed to do? He can only "shout" so loud, he cannot control whether the media picks up his "shout" or how they spin it.
But regardless, the S.I.F.T.R. "argument" (it never really was much of an argument) is officially dead. I don't want to hear it ever again.
Why? It's ok for Saddam to be connected to Al Qaeda as long as he wasn't actually involved in the 9/11 attacks in particular?
That's not the Bush doctrine.
Wasn't Dan Rather over there just before the war?
Can he attest to their authenticity? He knows when real documents are faked...
In a related story, Sandy Berger was seen entering the building wearing world record sized hip waders!
The blogospere is a powerful tool that the administration is using to their advantage. Whatever percolates up will be reported to a greater or lesser degree depending on it's significance. Rather than come across as trying to spin and cover their a$$, the "grass roots" disemination of these revelations will come from the bottom up and have a great deal more validity in the end.
Of course dumbasses don't understand that there is no Dictator in control of the GOP or the country as a whole. These same dumbasses might even believe that we can do ANYTHING we want. They are unaware that politics rarely allows a complete override of the tendencies of the People. They may even be unaware that Congress REFLECTS most intimately the wishes of the People.
Now thoughtful conservatives understand that it will take decades to change the mindset of the People to overcome the decades of Leftist ideology.
Those who join the Left's attacks on the President are not doing the Nation any good. Support of the President and the GOP is critical to the health of the Nation.
If you have a smoking gun, push a smoking gun. It's that simple.
"I just don't think that the old media will ever admit their error in this situation if a link is found." Uh ya think?... The same 'old media' which maintains the veracity of the fraudulent Rather docs, etc., the same 'old media' which has as its most pressing agenda the nullification of the Bush Presidency and reinstituting to power their beloved democrap party, the same 'old media' who worship clinton in his degeneracy even today, the same 'old media' (actually, I prefer BM, for big media) which is feverishly spewing as much filth and degeneracy as they can on the airways of primetime TV? Is that the 'old media' which you have doubts about regarding their dealing with truth, patriotism, and American sovereignty?
Maybe Bush should demand that these records be sealed for National Security reasons and publically state that the MSM should not get to see what is in them. That would get months of coverage and analysis of the documents, guaranteed.
You miss my point. There may be no definative blockbuster proof in these docs but collectively they produce a mosaic that illustrates through a preponderance of the evidence likely Sadaam/al-qaida support and coopwration.
After pounding President Bush in several press conferences and even in the debates, demanding that he admit the errors he made in the lead-up to the War, for them to fail to admit their own errors in the same issue, is profounding revealing.
Your notion that GWB is no Reagan, or trying to pit these two fine men and Presidents against each other is utterly foolish.
Reagan may not have had a Medicare bill to the likes of what GWB signed...but he did compromise and agree to full amnesty of over 3 million + illegal immigrants in 1986 (after 5 years of endless debate)...so at a time in which the problem was much more manageable Reagan went with the easier way out....Is he not a conservative??? - Hmm, seems to me Reagan appointed S.D. O'Connor and A. Kennedy to the SCOTUS.....GWB record of of the two fine men he has had confirmed stand up very well in a comparison.....And what about those tax increases in 86 under Reagan as well???...hmm, not to mention dropping the ball completely on any meaningful Soc Security reform???
Go ahead, tell us Reagan wasn't a true conservative, tell us he was a sell out. Yawn.
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