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Cheney gets defensive on iraq intelligence Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13227724.htmhttp://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13227724.htm
Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005
Cheney denies prewar intelligence was `distorted, hyped'
BY TODD J. GILLMAN
The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON - With public support for the Iraq war and the president's credibility fading, Vice President Dick Cheney pressed the counterassault Monday, accusing critics of "corrupt and shameless" revisionism in claiming the president misled the public before the conflict.
"The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight, but any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false," Cheney said at a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
Analysts called the White House war policy defense politically risky, especially while the public craves solutions rather than a rehash of old arguments - as reflected by last week's intense debates in Congress when a military stalwart, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called for the withdrawal of troops. At the same time, the Senate, by a wide bipartisan margin, demanded a road map to the conflict's end.
"The administration doesn't have to defend the past if it can explain and defend the future," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Americans are primarily concerned with whether this is going to work - whether it's worth the cost and the sacrifice, whether they're being told the truth about the risks involved."
The Cheney speech, he said, is the latest installment in an effort to deflect debate on hard questions over Iraq policy - a sign of "endless defensiveness coupled with endless spin and an almost total dearth of substance."
Cheney said Monday that he welcomed a healthy and civil debate over Iraq policy. But "what is not legitimate," he said, is the "dishonest and reprehensible" allegation from many Democrats that the administration misused prewar intelligence. He used similar language last week.
On Monday, Cheney took pains to praise Murtha as a "patriot" with an honest disagreement.
Cheney said it is a "dangerous illusion" to believe that retreating would make American safe, arguing that it would signal weakness and invite further attack.
To some analysts, Cheney's approach was somewhat puzzling.
"The administration is right to say they haven't lied," said Dr. James Lindsay, vice president at the Council for Foreign Relations, author of a book on President Bush's foreign policy and a national security aide to President Clinton.
He said he was surprised Cheney made a point to deny that intelligence was "hyped," because "they drew the worst-case scenario at every opportunity."
Last week, German intelligence officials who dealt with a key Iraqi informant said the Bush administration repeatedly exaggerated claims of Saddam Hussein's germ warfare program.
Critics have long accused the administration of downplaying doubts among intelligence analysts that aluminum tubes Iraq had obtained were destined for weapons, and they cite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's ominous prewar warning that it would be foolish to "wait for a mushroom cloud" to accept the claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program.
Democrats tried to seize the moment. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, one of the party's most influential voices on foreign policy, offered a litany of suggestions Monday for protecting U.S. interests in Iraq and hastening disengagement.
"By misrepresenting the facts, misunderstanding Iraq, and misleading on the war, this administration has brought us to the verge of a national security debacle," he said. "Many Americans have already concluded that we cannot salvage Iraq." Conservative analysts called it a natural reflex for the White House to face allegations about the president's truthfulness head-on.
"A bizarre sort of fiction has taken hold in the national political zeitgeist that somehow America was tricked into war and I think Cheney was trying to remind people that there was no trickery, there was consensus," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where Cheney spoke Monday.
On the other hand, she said he and the administration are coming across as defensive by spending so much time refighting an old battle over intelligence.
"People are looking for a formula. Come date X, we will withdraw. Unfortunately the situation doesn't lend itself to a formula. That doesn't mean there aren't important pieces of winning that the administration can describe," she said.
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