You don't see much of the vice president these days. It used to be a joke that VP's were only visible at funerals and conventions - kept in the background. Some were actually political opponents within the party, like Lyndon Johnson. The job disarmed them, so to speak.
But Cheney came to the Bush administration fully armed and seemingly obsessed with a long-brewed neocon scheme to conquer Iraq and install an oil-rich democracy in the Mideast. To that end, he has twisted the truth and blatantly lied many times to the media - it seems to be his function in this administration. And yet nobody seems willing or able to hold him accountable for pushing blatant propaganda on the American public. The following are snips from various interviews with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press.
It's now public that, in fact, [Saddam] has been seeking to acquire... the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb. [9/8/02]
"We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." [9/8/02]
"Well, I think I've just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons... It's only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons." [3/14/03]
"We know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization." [3/14/03]
"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." [9/23/03]
None of the above statements were true, and he knew full well at the time. No wonder he stays in his bunker.
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