Both Vice President Cheney and Senator and presumptive nominee, St. John of the McCain visited Iraq this week and both told some real whoppers. Cheney went for the “old school” version of the Big Lie by continuing to insist that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were joined at the hip despite the recently released Pentagon report that confirms just the opposite:
“This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home,” said Cheney, who was accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.
“So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace,” Cheney said. “Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans.”
That looks a little ambiguous you say? Don’t worry, Big Time was just getting started:
Vice President Dick Cheney, in a press conference during a surprise visit to Iraq, again stated that it was “pretty clear” there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda before Sep. 11.
Reminded of the release last week of an exhaustive Pentagon report which concluded that there were no ties between Saddam Hussein and the terror network, Cheney answered, “Well, it says no operational link. But there was, as I recall from looking at it, extensive links with Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Egyptian Islamic Jihad was the organization headed by Zawahiri, and he merged EIJ with al-Qaeda when he became the deputy director of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s number two.
“Now, was that a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda?” Cheney asked rhetorically. “Seems to me pretty clear that there was.”
When someone else asked him to reiterate his specific claim, Cheney replied, “You heard what I said. I was very precise.”
Let me be the first to say it: Dick Cheney is a very precise, and very large, liar. As for St. McCain of the Straight Shooting, I’ll let you be the judge:
[McCain] said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.
Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”
Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”
That’s right! McCain thinks Iran, a nation ruled by a fundamentalist Shi’ite regime, is helping Al Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim terrorist organization which the Iranian government considers its enemy. Indeed, Iran helped the US shortly after 9/11 with respect to intelligence regarding Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and offered to provide more help before the Bush administration rejected the Iranian government’s offer in 2003 to negotiate a security arrangement with Iran as part of a comprehensive settlement of all outstanding issues between our two countries.
Apparently this was too much for even McCain’s good buddy, Senator “I’m with Stupid” Lieberman, who felt the need to rescue McCain from his own lie and/or mistake:
A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”
I guess even Holy Joe has his limits. The question remains, however, do we really want four more years of this kind of incompetence and mendacity? Yet, that is what McCain is promising. Iraq today, Iraq tomorrow, Iraq forever! But if McCain can’t tell the difference between Al Qaeda and Shi’a militias in Iraq, how can we trust him with the power to command our military? Cheney, reprehensible though he is, was simply repeating a familiar (if incredibly bold faced) lie to cover his ass for promoting an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. If McCain wasn’t lying but was simply confused or misinformed (and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument) what does that say about that infamous “Commander-in-Chief threshold” which Senator Clinton claimed only she and McCain had passed? I suppose if stupidity is a qualification for the job, McCain is living up to the standard set by the current President. The only other explanation was that he was trying to pass off a lie to scare Americans into voting for him. I’m not sure which is worse, frankly.
