Cheney Lectures Russert on Iraq-9/11 Link

Link = connection, not to 911, but between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Hell, one of the participants in the '93 WTC bombing was an Iraqi, maybe not Saddam's cousin, but still an Iraqi.

Saddam is/would/will do any thing, and side with anyone to harm America and Americans. Only Maddy Halfbright could miss the connection.

MR. RUSSERT: We have not been greeted as liberated.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we have by most Iraqis. I think the majority of Iraqis are thankful for the fact that the United States is there, that we came and we took down the Saddam Hussein government.

That's an interesting exchange because it points out precisely why this debate has gotten so screwed up. Basically, it's a glossing over of the context in which the issue of resistance was being discussed.

The question prior to the war was whether there would be mass resistance by Iraqis that would require bloody house-to house fighting. The scenario was thousands of dead Americans -- the comparison was the Battle of Stalingrad. Do a search for Baghdad Stalingrad, and you'll see it. The Administration was saying they thought that degree of resistance was unlikely, and they were right.

What we are seeing is low-intensity resistance by isolated groups. Lives are being lost. But that was not the scale of resistance being considered prior to the invasion. Nobody, as far as I'm aware, promised that the entire population of Iraq would welcome the U.S. as liberators, and that there wouldn't be some resistance by citizens. The issue was mass resistance by the bulk of Iraqi citizens, and that has never transpired.

Good point!

And didnt we train al-qeida in Afghanistan during the 1980's?

Didnt we train the 19 hijackers/illegal immigrants how to fly jets from 1999-2000?

Didnt 15 of the 19 hijackers come from Saudi Arabia?

Havent their been links identified to the Saudi royal family to al-qeida?

Doesnt the Bush family and the Carlyle group have strong ties to both the Saudi royals as well as the bin-Ladens?

Why the hell are in Iraq again Mr Cheney?

How many billions of our tax dollars are being siphoned to Halliburton Mr Cheney?

Who did you meet with in your Energy task force Mr Cheney?

This is HUGE news. The administration has been mum on this up untill now. I wouldn't expect Cheney to say this unless he was serious.

They could be in panic mode I guess. in the past they have tried to make points that aren't really necessary when they feel pressed. But this is stuff is too serious to play games with, and I'd expect Cheney to realize that.

And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files,

Those files, along with the singing canaries, are gonna bury the anti-American RATs, in 04.

We've only seen the tip of the iceburg.

Though he did not specifically mention the South Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak, where radical Islamists rehearsed 9/11-style hijackings on a Soviet-era Tupelov 154 airliner, Cheney noted that "al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved."

BIG FAT BUMP!

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