Whoa--Newsweek: Details Cheney's Path to War

[cally]

I haven't seen this on DU yet. This article and the cover are amazing. I wonder if they are trying to make Cheney the fall guy for this maladministration. Most of this DUers know, but it is the first time I've seen it in a mainstream publication. I hope the worm is turning. :bounce:


Moderate and practical in person, Cheney can sound like an extremist on terrorism



Cheney’s Long Path to War
The Hard Sell: He sifted intel. He brooded about threats. And he wanted Saddam gone. The inside story of how Vice President Cheney bought into shady assumptions and helped persuade a nation to invade Iraq

By Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas
NEWSWEEK


Nov. 17 issue — Every Thursday, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have lunch together in a small dining room off the Oval Office. They eat alone; no aides are present. They have no fixed agenda, but it’s a safe assumption that they often talk about intelligence—about what the United States knows, or doesn’t know, about the terrorist threat.

THE PRESIDENT RESPECTS Cheney’s judgment, say White House aides, and values the veep’s long experience in the intelligence community (as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee in the 1980s and as secretary of Defense in the George H.W. Bush administration). As vice president, Cheney is free to roam about the various agencies, quizzing analysts and top spooks about terrorists and their global connections. “This is a very important area. It’s the one the president asked me to work on ... I ask a lot of hard questions,” Cheney told NBC’s Tim Russert last September. “That’s my job.”

Of all the president’s advisers, Cheney has consistently taken the most dire view of the terrorist threat. On Iraq, Bush was the decision maker. But more than any adviser, Cheney was the one to make the case to the president that war against Iraq was an urgent necessity. Beginning in the late summer of 2002, he persistently warned that Saddam was stocking up on chemical and biological weapons, and last March, on the eve of the invasion, he declared that “we believe that he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.” (Cheney later said that he meant “program,” not “weapons.” He also said, a bit optimistically, “I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.”) After seven months, investigators are still looking for that arsenal of WMD.
on edit:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/991209.asp?cp1=1

[Eloriel]

1. You forgot the link, I think. n/t

[cally]

2. Thanks. I added it..nt

.

[dobak]

3. oh yeah..

He is being set up.

With Cheney gone, the war issue become a moot point since it "wasn't" Bush's fault, but Cheney's.

Then Bush gets a moderate VP and they run away with the 2004 election.


Ah shit

[mike1963]

4. Cheney has already done the financial bit for his little empire, he is set

Bush is just a front-man for Cheney's plan and isn't smart enough to know, or honest enough to care, or both.

Halliburton has the contracts. That takes care of Cheney's agenda.
He doesn't seem to have any concern that he's basically a walking dead man, and that's what I can't quite figure out. It can't be altruistic,
his progeny aren't in any danger of needing food stamps and he sure doesn't have any concern about other people's children...the only thing left is some twisted desire to leave a legacy. Which he is assuredly
producing - but I don't think it will be one he wants. Same of course goes for Shrub. History isn't going to be kind to either of them.

The worst thing about this whole debacle is that history will hold our own generation liable for the ultimate disaster that's nigh-well unavoidable. We failed to stop these madmen. And that is OUR legacy.

[Stephanie]

5. I don't think so. Bush is irrelevant compared to Dick

Dick is the Whole Show. It's HIS cronies from PNAC who are making policy, skewing intel, writing the lies for Bush to read, planning the next war. Dick's not going to throw himself overboard. IMO.

[cosmicdot]

6. he could still operate out of his shadow government bunker

:crazy: "Moderate and practical in person, Cheney can sound like an extremist on terrorism" :eyes:



"The Hard Sell: He sifted intel. He brooded about threats. And he wanted Saddam gone. The inside story of how Vice President Cheney bought into shady assumptions and helped persuade a nation to invade Iraq"

I thought it was his Energy (Halliburton et al) Policy in action???



How he stole the oil and open up the cash flow of taxpayer money to Halliburton and other contributors