Harman Calls Out Cheney For Continuing To Push Faulty Intelligence

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) Calls Out Cheney For Continuing To Push Faulty Intelligence

cheney2.jpg The Bush administration continues to falsely link Saddam Hussein with the 9/11 hijackers. On Sunday, Tim Russert, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, asked Vice President Cheney if he still believed 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta ever met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. Cheney replied:

We don’t know. I mean, we’ve never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm…

But in fact, we do know. Today Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) wrote to Cheney and pointed out at least four reports that have concluded the meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer never took place:

Just last Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that cites multiple declassified intelligence assessments, some from as early as mid-2002, reporting evidence that the meeting did not occur. In addition, the 9/11 Commission concluded that “he available evidence does not support the original Czech report” of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi officer.

There are also classified assessments on this topic from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, dated 20 March 2006 and 27 April 2006, respectively.

The evidence is now public and the facts undisputed that the Prague meeting never happened. There was no provable link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda prior to 9/11.

During the same interview, Cheney also continued to falsely cite terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the link between pre-war Iraq and al-Qaeda.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/12/harman-letter-cheney/

...now totally discredited intelligence just proves how much of an idiot Cheney really is.