Node Of Evil - Fair And Balanced Reporting

Monday, September 15, 2003

 
Here's a bit from Tim Russert's interview with Cheney (one of the sources for the Washington Post article quoted in the previous post):

'Eight days after that [El-Baradei's report to the U.N.], you were on MEET THE PRESS, and we...'

'VICE PRES. CHENEY: Right.'

'MR. RUSSERT: ...talked about that specifically. Let’s watch:'

'(Videotape, March 16, 2003):'
'MR. RUSSERT: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program, we disagree.'

'VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree, yes. And you’ll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community, disagree.'

'And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq is concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.'
(End videotape)

'MR. RUSSERT: Reconstituted nuclear weapons. You misspoke.'

'VICE PRES. CHENEY: Yeah. I did misspeak. I said repeatedly during the show weapons capability. We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.'



"Misspoke"... If I had a dollar for every time the Administration "Misspoke" about something as vitally important as whether or not Saddam Hussein had "nuclear weapons" or a "nuclear weapons program", I could outdo Bush's campaign fundraising. This must be the similar sort of "misspoke" that happens when people like Paul Wolfowitz make assertions about ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda:



'In television and newspaper interviews on Thursday's anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said hundreds of fighters from al-Qaeda and other groups are now in Iraq. Wolfowitz also said "a great many" bin Laden operatives were trying to link up with remnants of Saddam's regime to attack Americans.'

'"We know it (Iraq) had a great deal to do with terrorism in general and with al-Qaeda in particular, and we know a great many of bin Laden's key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq," Wolfowitz said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."'

'"There are some thousands of former Baathists (members of Saddam's Baath Party) and some hundreds of al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorists who are ... killing Americans and Iraqis and U.N. officials and moderate Shiite leaders in order to destabilize Iraq," Wolfowitz said in an interview with The Washington Post.'

'But Wolfowitz – an architect of U.S. policy in Iraq – said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that he had misspoken.'

Andrew 11:05 AM : |

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