Oh, America's media whores... (especially those "exceptional" "press leaders" at the NY Lyin' Times & Washington, Corrupt, Cowardly Post) -
- How far you have fallen, how ABSOLUTELY DESPICABLE (bordering on abjectly vile) you have become.
BECAUSE you have become TOO STUPID, TOO INCOMPETENT, & TOO CORRUPT to do your jobs, allow us to show you some BASIC QUESTIONS that you, the "leaders" of America's press & 'news' SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKING of Vice President Cheney, but that instead you have been TOO LAZY, TOO CORRUPT, TOO COMPLACENT, too self-important, TOO STUPID, and TOO COMPLICIT to have asked over these past few years:
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NEW: "Super-#1" over and above all other questions that SHOULD be asked of Mr. Richard C. Cheney:
"Mr. Vice-President, is it true that in the late 1990s, when you were CHAIRMAN and CEO of HALLIBURTON corp., that you personally DIRECTED and APPROVED of the sale of over $70 MILLION in oil-field equipment to SADDAM HUSSEIN's IRAQ -
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/oilforfood/2001/0627chen.htm
at a time when America was SPENDING A BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR, no less, on the US enforced UN EMBARGO on Iraq, SPECIFICALLY to impair Saddam's ability to wage war, or develop WMD programs?
Is this not an all the more clear and present case of treachery - AIDING and ABETTING AMERICA's ENEMIES - because you, yourself, had SIGNED the 'PNAC' "NewAmericanCentury.org" manifesto (what many observers consider to be the Kristol/Kagan/Wolfowitz "blueprint" for the invasion of Iraq which you made possible in 2003) DECLARING SADDAM TO BE that very THREAT to America" ??
http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
< We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and MORAL CLARITY may not be fashionable today.
Mr. Vice President, was it "MORAL CLARITY" for you to deal with Saddam in such a way as to STRENGTHEN HIS FUNDING and military/economic hand?
(note: To be fair, the EXPLICIT PNAC definition of IRAQ as "THREAT #1" to America's existence and future stability did not come until the very next PNAC document, 6 months later in January of 1998. However, since INVADING IRAQ was the raison d'etre, the Alpha & Omega of the PNAC "more war now" think tank, there can be NO doubt what then Halliburton CEO Cheney was signing on to - a reality that is ALL THE MORE TREACHEROUS, precisely because PNAC is CRYING about the CHENEY/Halliburton-esque ability of European countries to EVADE that US embargo on Iraq!
< The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections.>
Mr. Vice President, HOW DO YOU SQUARE the PNAC COMPLAINT about "our partners [failure] to UPHOLD THE SANCTIONS" on Iraq - with your own company LEADING that EVASION?
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#1. Mr. Vice President, TEN WEEKS AFTER 9-11, OSAMA bin LADEN was CORNERED in TORA BORA, with a US Delta Force special team IN PLACE to DESTROY bin Laden's command and kill him in action there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/02/60minutes/main4494937.shtmlThe plan was for the Delta Forces team to come in the "back door", via the mountains on Pakistan border with Afghanistan and bin Laden's al Qaida complex in the Tora Bora valley. The officer who ran that Delta Force team - charged SPECIFICALLY with GETTING bin Laden, per President Bush's "We're going to get him, dead or alive" pledge made
STANDING ON THE TOMB of 9-11 RUBBLE, says he was SPECIFICALLY ORDERED by his MILITARY SUPERIORS _NOT_ to launch that mission -
- THE very mission that team had been formed for, over all the years that Delta Force has been entrusted with those MOST VITAL US military special ops missions.
Mr. Vice President, DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS that Osama bin Laden USED THE VERY ROUTE that Delta Force would have taken to get bin Laden, to escape Tora Bora a few days later?
WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE in that Command Decision NOT to use ALL ASSETS, at the most energetic levels possible, to get bin Laden? Do you have any regrets for (apparently) BEING SO
"OUT OF THE LOOP" of that vital mission(s) to capture bin Laden, that you, personally, could not have OVER-RULED those Military Command members that ordered Delta Force NOT to execute the mission, NOT to kill or capture bin Laden?
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA, Mr. Vice President, who those officials were that called off Delta Force ???
#2. Mr. Vice President, shortly after Osama bin Laden ESCAPED TORA BORA, in a White House press conference on March 13, 2002, President Bush said:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/13/bush.transcript/
< "So I don't know where he is [OSAMA bin LADEN!]. Nor -- you know, I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you." >
Mr. Vice President, DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS that President Bush had SUCH A CAVALIER, if not shoddy, regard for the capture or termination of the terror threat posed by Osama bin Laden?
WERE YOU EVEN AWARE of Mr. Bush's callous disregard for the terrorist who masterminded, financed, authorized, & executed those terror attacks on Americans?
If so, why did Mr. Bush never correct his callous, clear and present "FLIP FLOP" on his earl er claim, made standing on the tomb that was 9-11 rubble, that "We would get Osama bin Laden dead or alive"?
#3. Mr. Vice President, in the years after Osama bin Laden ESCAPED the US military in Tora Bora, he apparently SET UP SHOP on the Pakistan side of the border, as the radical, militaristic, 'terrorist' Taliban METASTASIZED in to Pakistan's side of the Tribal Area of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Mr. Vice President, DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS for how the USA was apparently able to DO SO LITTLE to CAPTURE or EVEN PRESSURE Al Qaida & the TALIBAN on the Pakistan side of the border, and, given the growing threat to the Pakistan government by the Taliban in the past months, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD have done DIFFERENTLY?
#4. Mr. Vice President, shortly after US armored & infantry units SEIZED BAGHDAD, Iraq's largest and most important ammunition dump, the Al Qa'gaa complex just 20 miles south of Baghdad, was SYSTEMATICALLY LOOTED of TONS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES & munitions.... long AFTER the area had been over-run by US forces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qa'qaa_high_explosives_controversy Mr. Vice President, why were you not aware that
Al Qa'gaa WOULD HAVE BEEN THE DEPOT for which ANY weapons-grade explosives, used in any possible Iraqi _NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESEARCH_ would have been stored [the ostensible 'Iraq has WMD program' excuse for the US invasion of Iraq],
and, as such, WHY DID YOU NOT INSIST that Al Qa'qaa BE SECURED by US guards, so its munitions & high explosions could NOT be carted off by potential terrorists & insurgents?
(Especially given _your expertise in PRECISELY this area_ - Iraqi weapons complexes - as a former Secretary of Defense for the Bush-1 administration during the Gulf-1 war.)
#5. Mr. Vice President, Americans know that on August 6, 2001,
the CIA attempted to hand-deliver a briefing, a "PDB" (Presidential Daily Briefing) to President Bush entitled, "bin Laden DETERMINED TO ATTACK in America." http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/bush.briefing/index.htmlWe learned, much later, in 2004, that President Bush
REFUSED to TAKE ANY ACTION on the urgent CIA warnings, some reports even quoting Pres. Bush as telling his CIA briefers "OK, you've covered your ass now" as he went back to his
MONTH-LONG August VACATION at his Texas ranch. And some Americans are aware that in early 2001, shortly after you and President Bush were inaugurated, National Counter Terror 'Czar' RICHARD CLARKE urgently warned you, personally, Mr. Vice President, of the IMMINENT and LOOMING THREAT that al Qiada terrorism posed for potentially attacking the United States. (Al Qaida had, after all, attacked the USS COLE in a Yemen harbor, by a suicide bomb, in October 2000, while you, Texas Governor Bush, fellow former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, and others were out on the campaign trail, among your most important campaign points that Republicans knew better how defend America, and protect America's deployed military, than the Democratic Clinton-Gore administration.) Mr. Vice President, YOU TURNED Counter-Terror Czar Richard Clarke DOWN when he requested a TOP LEVEL, CABINET-level meeting with yourself and the President to deal with that LOOMING THREAT of a REPEATED Al Qaida terrorist attack - possibly on America itself: Richard Clarke:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.
"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.
"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.
"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department. Mr. Vice President, many Americans know that President Bush made NO EFFORTS after his August 6 2001 "PDB" to make a potential terrorist hijacking EVEN A LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT, and many Americans know that you, Mr. Cheney, REPEATEDLY TURNED DOWN "Counter-Terror Czar" Richard Clarke's REPEATED EFFORTS - many of them made TO YOU, PERSONALLY, to hold a COUNTER-TERRORISM MEETINGS.
But most Americans, Mr. Vice President, are UNAWARES, that on JULY 10th, 2001, CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET _PERSONALLY_ made a visit to the White House, to brief either your or President Bush on that very LOOMING AL QAIDA TERRORIST THREAT - but that you and Pres. Bush REFUSED TO SEE Director Tenet, and he was forced to give his URGENT "Al Qaida DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA" briefing you the President's National Security Advisor (then) Condoleeza Rice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.htmlMR. VICE PRESIDENT, HOW DO YOU SQUARE the REPEATED efforts by these national security/counter-terror/CIA experts - Mr. Clarke, CIA Director Tenet, "ordinary" CIA briefers entrusted by the agency to brief the president - to WARN YOU and President Bush about the LOOMING AL QAIDA THREAT, with your REFUSAL TO DO ANYTHING - not one thing can you point to that would have made the 9-11 hijackers' task even a TINY BIT MORE DIFFICULT - about that threat?
Excuse me, Mr. Vice President: THERE WAS ONE THING the Bush-Cheney administration did after CIA Director Tenet's URGENT VISIT to the White House, IN PERSON, to DISCUSS the IMMINENT DANGER of an al Qaida bombing or hijacking terror plot - Attorney General John Ashcroft was GIVEN A PRIVATE JET, citing a "THREAT ASSESSMENT" as the reason he should NO LONGER FLY on PUBLIC airliners.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtmlMr. Vice President, HOW DO YOU SQUARE the FBI and Justice Department giving Attorney General Ashcroft PROTECTION from flying on PUBLIC AIRLINERS, while the DOJ, FBI, and your White House REFUSED to release so much as a GENERAL Traveller's ADVISORY to the American flying public - much less to the EVEN MORE VULNERABLE AIRLINE FLIGHT CREWS - about that LOOMING, DEADLY THREAT ?!
< In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term. >
Mr. Vice President, given YOUR OWN and President Bush's REPEATED FAILURE, repeated REFUSAL to DO ANYTHING, NOT ONE THING to make a KNOWN, PREVIOUSLY MADE, potentially DEADLY (al Qaida) terror attack against American airline passengers, flight crews, World Trade tower workers, or even potential military targets even slightly more difficult, HOW CAN YOU NOW CLAIM EXPERTISE at knowing what would fend off future attacks on Americans now that you are out of office?
#6. Mr. Vice President, you know claim that "Defending America" is now your top priority. But in Feb. 2006, the sale of US PORTS to a DUBAI, Unite Arab Emirates owned consortium was looming - here's how wikipedia puts it:
< The DP World controversy began in February 2006 and rose to prominence as a national security debate in the United States. At issue was the sale of port management businesses in six major U.S. seaports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and whether such a sale would compromise port security. >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Ports_World_controversy
MR. CHENEY, how can you reconcile the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars of additional spending American taxpayers have made (since you were inaugurated in January 2001) on the Iraq war, on the Afghanistan War, and for the "War on Terror" in general - all ostensibly made to further America's NATIONAL SECURITY - with the efforts to SELL US PORTS and their operations TO a consortium OWNED BY FOREIGN DICTATORS? (Dictators with KNOWN support and ties to SUNNI FUNDAMENTALIST organizations, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East, many of those organization with KNOWN LINKS to US-declared TERRORIST GROUPS, at that?!)
Mr. Vice President, WERE YOU UNAWARES of those efforts to bring the Sale of US ports to the Dubai Ports World consortium, and if so, why not?
Mr. Vice President, IF you WERE AWARE of the effort to bring the Ports World sale - of America's CRITICAL AND VULNERABLE US PORTS to foreign dictators - before Congress, WHY DID YOU NOT SQUELCH that deal before it even made a political firestorm?
#6. Mr. Vice President, you claim that TORTURE of prisoners suspected of being ranking members of terrorist organizations is THE ONLY WAY TO fully DEFEND AMERICA - that suspending the "Enhanced Interrogations" (torture) of high-value prisoners will "MAKE AMERICA LESS SAFE." YET DESPITE your frequent use of TORTURE during the 7 years after 9-11, the United States never captured or confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden, and, indeed, the Taliban has METASTASIZED in to Pakistan.
How do you account for your FAILURE to PREVENT the METASTASIZING of the Taliban in Pakistan, and how does that reconcile with your assertions that "torture makes America safer"?
#8. Mr. Vice President, did you continue to hold Halliburton Deferred Stock Options while you were Vice President, and if a Democratic Vice President continued to hold stock in a company, which he or she personally approved of large, no-bid government contracts to, would you not claim that as an example of corruption? Why not?
#9. Mr. Vice President, DID YOU ORDER "the OUTING" of Valerie Plame Wilson, wife of outspoken State Department critic Ambassador Wilson? If not, WHAT MEASURES DID YOU TAKE to PUNISH THOSE who circumvented you to coordinate that media "outing" campaign?
