Cheney has wiretap documents

The Washington Post reports this morning that Vice President Cheney's office acknowledged for the first time that they have documents on the illegal government wiretapping program instituted by the Bush Administration. Surprise, surprise, they are NOT handing them over to Congressional investigators.

Here's a little tidbit about what they're holding back:

Nonetheless, Coffin identified by date a series of memos and orders that "may be responsive" to the Senate committee's demands. They include 43 separate authorizations from President Bush for the program, which had to be renewed approximately every 45 days beginning on Oct. 4, 2001.

The letter also lists dates, from October 2001 through February 2005, for 10 legal memoranda from the Justice Department.

Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), who is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has threatened to hold White House officials in contempt if they do not comply with Congressional subpoenas for documents. Given the lack of aggressive oversight, it's refreshing to see Senator Leahy flexing his muscle.

More insulting Cheney comments on Iraq quagmire

On Sunday, I posted an interview that Dick Cheney gave in 1994 where he defended the decision not to invade Baghdad. He makes a really good case for not invading Iraq. If you haven't seen it, please take a moment to watch it.

After wide distribution of this video, a local CBS affiliate was able to get a, well, non-response from the VP's office.

“He was not Vice President at the time, it was after he was Secretary of Defense,” a spokesperson told CBS 5 San Francisco. “I don’t have any comment.”

But, the incredibly talented folks at Think Progress found the transcript from an interview that then-VP Nominee Dick Cheney gave on Meet the Press on August 27, 2000. Here's the relevant part, which responds to Tim Russert asking if he regrets not taking out Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War:

I don’t, Tim. It was–and it’s been talked about since then. But the fact of the matter is, the only way you could have done that would be to go to Baghdad and occupy Iraq. If we’d done that, the U.S. would have been all alone. We would not have had the support of the coalition, especially of the Arab nations that fought alongside us in Kuwait. None of them ever set foot inside Iraq. Conversations I had with leaders in the region afterwards–they all supported the decision that was made not to go to Baghdad.

They were concerned that we not get into a position where we shifted instead of being the leader of an international coalition to roll back Iraqi aggression to one in which we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world taking down governments. So I think we got it right, so suppose it’s one of those things that’ll be debated for some time. But I thought the decision was sound at the time, and I do today.

So, he held the same philosophy in 1991, 1994, and 2000, that going into Baghdad would create a disastrous situation. So, it begs the question 'what changed his mind?'. I asked the VP's Press Office the question and they referred me to an interview he did with Jonathan Karl from ABC News February 23, 2007:

Q: Back in 1991, you talked about how military action in Iraq would be the classic definition of a quagmire. Have you been disturbed to see how right you were? Or people certainly said that you were exactly on target in your analysis back in 1991 of what would happen if the U.S. tried to go in --

A: Well, I stand by what I said in '91. But look what's happened since then -- we had 9/11. We've found ourselves in a situation where what was going on in that part of the globe and the growth and development of the extremists, the al Qaeda types that are prepared to strike the United States demonstrated that we weren't safe and secure behind our own borders. We weren't in Iraq when we got hit on 9/11. But we got hit in '93 at the World Trade Center, in '96 at Khobar Towers, or '98 in the East Africa embassy bombings, 2000, the USS Cole. And of course, finally 9/11 right here at home. They continued to hit us because we didn't respond effectively, because they believed we were weak. They believed if they killed enough Americans, they could change our policy because they did on a number of occasions. That day has passed. That all ended with 9/11.

Okay, so I want to make sure I understand this correctly. He changed a decade or more of his opinion, based on the events of 9/11, even though it is clearly established that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on the U.S. Blatant hypocrisy at its worst. Hypocrisy that has cost us nearly 4,000 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been spent on health care, education, and developing alternative fuels.

I can't believe that Bush-Cheney world is still spouting this crap. 9/11 is not a justification for war with Iraq. Period. It's insulting and a downright lie that they've been telling the American people. I think it's gross misconduct in office.

Cheney makes the case against invading Baghdad, says it would be a quagmire

This video is shocking to me; shocking in the hypocrisy that oozes out of this man. Here, in a video in 1994, Cheney defended the decision to NOT invade Baghdad, saying that there would be no other government to put in place and that the country would likely splinter into several pieces. He further says that the 146 American casualties were a high price to pay.

Money quote:

...and the question for the President, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was how many additional dead Americans Hussein was worth, and our judgment was not very many and I think we got it right.

Let's see if the main stream media will be willing to throw this quote back at the now Vice President and ask him how he came to believe that nearly FOUR THOUSAND dead Americans are worth removing Saddam Hussein. Further, how he thinks we can settle the quagmire which he correctly predicted with out further loss of American lives. Finally, I'd like to know why he was the chief architect behind the current war in Iraq given his crystal clear understanding of what a disaster it would be.

It's time for an Accountability Moment.