The hunt for Cheney

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Times are hard for Cheney. First, although he reportedly despises it, he saw it necessary to make a charm "we will have a decade of war" ( when you re-elect me, he-he-he ) offensive, giving interviews where he reiterated claims on Iraqi arsenals long refuted. Unsurprising, he got fire for that.
Then there was his goose shooting thingie with that cozy supreme court judge.

Now the intelligence world strikes back, unwilling to be the lonely scapegoat for Bush's war: Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say*. Cheney's role is crucial to understand the intelligence failure that led to the poor intel on Iraq, as he directly fed defectors tales to the whitehouse, bypassing the normal control and checking intel has to undergo. That did not get lost on his opponents and that's where they will try to place their crowbar.

But maybe the hardest blow for him must be this one: His old pals at Haliburton now consider him a risk factor. Well, his pals at Haliburton, in good old fashioned style, want to make money, not to fight a wars on evil.

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* More on that here:
http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/liefactory.html
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/iraq/1448.html
http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

[ February 03, 2004, 13:15: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

He's hiding under your bed.

 

Thanks for the information Ragusa. Keep up the solid research. Your contributions make a difference.

 

Actually fellas, he does make a great point here. Don't let your distaste for Ragusa's obsession dismiss this issue so easily.

Cheney is finding himself under increasingly heavy scrutiny these days. He's under investigation from the French government for taking bribes. He refuses to publicly discuss his energy policy, despite overwhelming evidence that suggests conflict of interest. He's shut down almost every attempt to investigate his practices. He pushed harder for the Iraq war than anybody, and still continues to insist WMD will be found even after his own appointee refutes that claim. He takes the very judge assigned to investigate him on a hunting trip. I mean...helloooo.

It's petty and irresponsible to chalk all that up to "cheap shots from the Democrats," as Cheney himself does. If the entire country can get it's panties in a bunch over a blowjob from an intern, Cheney deserves at least a second look. The man is bad news and has way too much power for a vice president. If the same accusations were thrown at Gore 4 years ago, I would've wanted an investigation for him too.

 

Jack Funk,
well, under my bed would be a place where this silly french judge won't find him.

There is no doubt that Cheney had and exercised a very strong influence on the whitehouse, and was the driving force behind the "state-defense split".
In the 2000 elections he was the thoughtful, grey-haired Washington veteran who reassured nervous voters that candidate George W. Bush would indeed have adult supervision if he became president of the United States. Au contraire: Cheney has turned out to be the extremist in the Bush administration.

And old GOP 'big money' campaign contributors have demanded as a condition that Bush has to dump Cheney in order to get their money.

Just like you Jack Funk, Cheney was making jokes about his importance:

So that is quite a question: Will Dubya dump Cheney?

 

Actually, I agree with you. I agree with you more often than you think. It is usually the way you deliver your message that I find problematic.

As far as "Dubya dumping Cheney" (is it really that hard to type "Bush"?), count on it. But not for the reasons that you are illustrating.

Cheney will not be on the ticket, because (even before this) he could not win the presidency in 2008. The Republicans will pick a running mate who can be groomed to run for President in 2008.

Dumping him will only be easier now.

 

The funny thing is, naming Cheney as his running mate lost Bush my vote back in 2000. Unfortunately, dumping him now is too little, too late to get it back. I hope the Dems come up with someone I can vote for and still sleep at night, or else I'll have to go straight Libertarian ticket again.

 

@ Rallymama

Apart from Dean, and possibly Sharpton, who in the Democratic field gives you the willies?

 

Rally .. don't do it. Don't go to the dark side!!!!

 

Honestly, Gonzaga, since I won't be voting in the primary I haven't analyzed the Democratic candidates enough to really know. And before anyone gets on my case, I won't be voting in the Democratic primary because I'm a registered Republican, not due to apathy.

Sorry, Mat, I just can't see this being the year that the Republican ticket gets my vote.

 

I don't have a problem with Republicans. I have a problem with people who vote for terrible candidates just because they happen to be Repiblican, or Democrat, or whomever.

By not voting for Bush because you don't like him, despite being a Republican, you do your party a great service. Bravo. If we had more voters in this country with your philosophy, maybe we'd have better candidates on both sides of the aisle to choose from. But the fact is we live in a country where 1/3 vote Republican no matter what, 1/3 who vote Democrat no matter what, and 1/3 who make up their minds during the primaries and election year.

 

That ought to be 1/6, 1/6, and 1/6. The other 3/6 don't vote at all.

 

No that's what I meant - the 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 of those that DO vote. But I figured that was obvious.

Must...stop...fraction...overload...*gurgle*....

 

Anyone remembers Valerie Plame? The CIA operative outed last year (only because her hubby, former ambassador Wilson, said silly things against a particularly dubious claim Bush made in his State of the Union adress - that Iraq sought to buy Uranium from Niger [which was based on forgeries so crude that an IAEA speaker said it could have been spotted with Google on the internet ... ]) ... it has been widely understood that the leaking of Plame's identity was an act of retribution by the neocons, the hawks for the war on Iraq (and war on evil in general), and that the leaker was to be found in Cheney's office.

After a period of calm first results of the investigation about the "Plame affair" are coming out: Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe.

So there are two names out yet: John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. John Hannah, wile having a much more low-key profile than Libby, is an interesting character too: In a Newsweek report from 15 December 2003 he was named as one recipient, with William J. Luti (more on him in the articles and the diagram on Cheney in my first post) of Rumsfeld's OSP, of 'raw intelligence' from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress INC. That makes him a key figure in the "stovepipe" flow of information to Cheney, bypassing the intelligence services and one of the key makers of the case for war against Iraq.

Whoever of them falls, I think he or both will only be fallguys for Cheney who *certainly* didn't know what was going on in his office. Sure.
But in any case, there will be fallout on Cheney too, further weakening his position.

Thursday was a black day for Cheney. More on the Intelligence community firing back - aiming for Cheney - in this article: Big guns fired in intelligence war.

EDIT: Wrong link for Luti fixed

[ February 06, 2004, 16:35: Message edited by: Ragusa ]