CHENEY TELLS REPORTERS IN BAGHDAD THERE WAS A LINK BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL QAEDA

Over five years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney was telling anyone who would listen to him that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Since then all intelligence reports have indicated there NEVER was a tie between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but that hasn't stopped Cheney.

At a press conference in Baghdad Monday, Cheney was still talking about how there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the United States invaded and occupied Iraq five years ago.

During the press conference, Cheney again cited a thoroughly-debunked Weekly Standard article written by his own biographer Stephen Hayes as laying out the best case of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection. “It was the Weekly Standard that dealt with this subject,” Cheney said.

Though Cheney urged reporters to “go read the report,” reporters will have a difficult time doing that. According to ABC News, the new Pentagon report “won’t be emailed to reporters and it won’t be posted online.” So you’ll just have to take Dick Cheney’s word for it.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/17/cheney-iraq-al-qaeda-again/

Before the Iraq war began, Dick Cheney was among the most prominent messengers of the false claim that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with al Qaeda. For example, he said it was “pretty well confirmed” that a 9/11 hijacker met with Iraqi intelligence officials before 9/11.

Over the past five years, numerous intelligence reports have conclusively proved that there was no Iraq/al Qaeda relationship. A Senate Intelligence Committee report stated in Sept. 2006 that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were not collaborators, but rather enemies.

More recently, a study commissioned by the Defense Department to look into the Iraq/al Qaeda ties “showed no connection between the two.” But Dick Cheney still isn’t convinced. Speaking at a press conference in Iraq today, Cheney shot down the new report. He acknowledged that — while no “operational link” has been found between Iraq and al Qaeda — it’s “pretty clear” there is a link:

CHENEY: Well, this is no operational link. But there was, as I recall from looking at it, extensive links with Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Egyptian Islamic Jihad was the organization headed by Zawahiri, and he merged EIJ with Al Qaeda when he became the deputy director of Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden’s number two. Now, was that a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Seems to me pretty clear that there was.

But it’s a question — I would urge you to go read the report. I know ABC reported on it. If you dig into the report in depth, I think you may find that there was an extensive relationship with a broad range of terrorist groups, that he was a state sponsor of terror. And I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.

To refresh everyone’s memories about Zarqawi, he operated in a region of Iraq before the war that was independent of Saddam and completely outside his control.

During the press conference, Cheney again cited a thoroughly-debunked Weekly Standard article written by his own biographer Stephen Hayes as laying out the best case of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection. “It was the Weekly Standard that dealt with this subject,” Cheney said.

Though Cheney urged reporters to “go read the report,” reporters will have a difficult time doing that. According to ABC News, the new Pentagon report “won’t be emailed to reporters and it won’t be posted online.” So you’ll just have to take Dick Cheney’s word for it.

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