Declassified CIA Docs: Cheney is a Flagrant Liar
The National Security Archive has obtained through a FOIA request newly released CIA documents pertaining to 9/11. There do not appear to be any great revelations in the release, although one of them further illustrates what a liar former Vice President Dick Cheney is.
The fact that the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, actively promoted the falsehood that Saddam Hussein was somehow tied to al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11th is at this point uncontroversial. It was a deliberate propaganda campaign to help rally Americans to support a war on Iraq that had already been decided upon.
Two months after the 9/11 attacks, on December 9, 2001, Dick Cheney went on Meet the Press and, when asked by Tim Russert whether “Iraq was involved in September 11,” mentioned a “report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that [9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.”
Despite heavy redactions, one of these just-released CIA documents reveal that one day before Cheney’s appearance on Meet the Press, the CIA confirmed in a briefing that was sent to the White House Situation Room that “11 September 2001 hijacker Mohamed Atta did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000.”
Two years later, on September 14, 2003, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Cheney appeared once again on Meet the Press. Here is part of the transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know…With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it.
In fact, it had been completely discredited two years earlier, one day prior to Cheney’s first television utterance of it. It was actually well known at that point, in the government and the press, that an Iraq-Qaeda connection didn’t exist and the Atta visit in Prague was fabricated. Frontline:
As Paul Pillar, former CIA analyst and National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, wrote in his recent book: “The supposed alliance between Saddam’s regime and al-Qa’ida clearly did not drive the Bush administration’s decision to launch the war [in Iraq] because the administration was receiving no indications that any such alliance existed,” adding that “this fact did not stop the administration from nonetheless promoting publicly the notion of such an alliance.”
By August 2003, after another year that included the most intensive selling of the war, more than two-thirds of Americans thought Saddam had been involved in 9/11. Some of this belief was due to innuendo such as the vice president’s repeated references to a phantom meeting in Prague between an Iraqi and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. It was due mostly to the administration’s rhetorical drumbeat that repeatedly mentioned Iraq, 9/11, and “war on terror” in the same breath.
After knowingly lying the country to war, Dick Cheney now sits comfortably, writing his memoirs and retaining respect and status, totally immune from any responsibility for his crimes.
Jim Bovard
June 19th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Bravo – fine stuff. John, I hope AWC is paying you by the word today.
MvGuy
June 19th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Gee John…… You never ask the question these releases beg………
mojo
June 19th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
The nature of capitalism is based on lies, if the first lies don't work have a plan B for another lie, if that dosen’t work then have a plan C which is a war but lie about it any way.
MoT
June 19th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
No, the nature of "government" is based on lies.
Offenbach
June 20th, 2012 at 6:42 am
That Dick Cheney is a pathological liar is now well established. Since the U.S. Justice Department refuses to arrest him for planning and promoting aggressive war, which is a war crime, application should be made to the international community to demand his arrest and trial by the International Criminal Court. At the very least, the international community should be called upon – as I do right now – to impose sanctions on his investment and travel opportunities, until such time as he can be brought to justice.
Kojac
June 20th, 2012 at 6:47 am
They all work for the same people! The BANKERS!
mojo
June 20th, 2012 at 8:25 am
If you are talking about US Government, then such government no matter if they are democrats or republicans are dominated by capitalism, the US government and its social political and social economics idea is based on capitalism, is always been dominated by the capitalism and its vulture economic system, look why do you think that US and NATO are at wars for last 60 years, have they ever done any good but opening new markets for capitalism or if you like Oil companies. Hitler was after the world energy where if conquered he could dominate the world economy, he choice the wrong path to get it, he attacked USSR, George W. Bush and before him Bill Clinton started the same trend from south starting with Yugoslavia and then Afghanistan and Iraq and now Syria and etc. Look at the world map, see where all the world energy is located and where US and NATO militarism are stationed and where they are at wars. Persian Gulf is for one, Central Asia and Africa is next in line for US government to start wars for its masters the capitalism vulture economic system, the open third world war is looming, is just around the corner. Without a true and functioning democracy the society will collapse, as it happens now, look at Greece and rest of the EU economic collapsing, look at US and its economy collapsing, which is the reasons for US and EU being at war for last 60 years, you need the government but peoples government not the capitalism and its vulture economic system.
Joseph Zrnchik
June 20th, 2012 at 9:20 am
He will die soon enough, well maybe not soon enough, but soon. I wonder if he fears divine retribution or if he is such a heathen that he gives death little thought. He makes me hope there is a God.
pete
June 20th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Dick Cheney is on ythe payroll of Israel. America to him is just the neighborhood he was born in..Cheney and our last president Alfred E. Newman have and would sell America down the river in a moment.
John_Muhammad
June 20th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
""writing his memoirs and retaining respect and status,""
Memoirs which will undoubtedly repeat his same lies and as for his 'respect and status' I wouldn't give a tinker's damn for any of it as it's undeserved and paid for by the blood of Americans sent to their deaths for no reason.
Ball
June 20th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
A Straussian lie? Why I never!
Arthur Sayed
June 20th, 2012 at 11:16 pm
I don’t see how this CIA doc helps prove or disprove anything because it is just saying Atta wasn’t in Prague May 31, 2000. But he was in Prague in June of 2000 boarding a plane to Newark, NJ (which was known already anyway), and which I suppose this doc further substantiates. It seems to me that it was already very clear and public knowledge that Dick Cheney was publicly lying about this.
Popsiq
June 21st, 2012 at 3:21 am
He's also a fragrant liar.
Buy "DICK!' the Cheney-inspired line of men's fragrance and body products.
Now you too can smell like the most notable presence around Bushco's conference table.
Cover up those wet farts and the cloying miasma emanating from unwashed oxters with the
manly scents of steak, sage and buckshot, tricked-out in undertones of gardenia and persimmon.
And for the skin a wide range of rejuvenating products made from pure lard and fetal goats. Just look at the man himself, Dorian Gray couldn't have done his deeds and looked any better.
Buy DICK! Wear DICK! Smell like DICK!
(Made in China)
cpvon
June 21st, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Sorry mojo, I hit the thumb down. Meant to hit thumb up. Can't fix it.
@garygramscom
March 18th, 2013 at 11:06 am
I wonder how many loony libs will miss this…. and I quote (or you can go read it for yourself).
“The supposed alliance between Saddam’s regime and al-Qa’ida clearly did not drive the Bush administration’s decision to launch the war [in Iraq] because the administration was receiving no indications that any such alliance existed,