Progress Report: Cheney's Pants 'Probably' on Fire

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Center for American Progress - Progress Report

 

 

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and

Jonathan Baskin

 

 

 

July 7, 2004

IRAQCheney's Pants 'Probably' on FireJUDICIARYThe War

on Women

UNDER THE RADAR

 

IRAQ

Cheney's Pants 'Probably' on Fire

 

In a terse, one-sentence rebuke, the bipartisan 9/11

Commission yesterday embarrassed Vice President Dick

Cheney, debunking his claims of having more evidence

of a purported Saddam-al Qaeda link. Last month, after

the Commission reported " no credible evidence " of a

collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,

Cheney reiterated his claim of having " overwhelming

evidence " of a connection, then attacked the

commission and said he " probably " had more information

than they did. But yesterday, the Commission said " it

had access to the same information the vice president

has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq

prior to the 9/11 attacks " and that its " position is

firm, unchanged and committed to our previous finding:

We have not discovered collaboration-cooperation

between al-Qaeda and Iraq in general terrorist

activities across the world, against the United

States. " (As John Stewart recently joked about

Cheney's dishonesty, " Mr. Vice President, it's my duty

to inform you that your pants are on fire. " ) With a

majority of Americans now believing the Iraq war was a

mistake, the Commission's declaration further

undermines the " central justification the Bush

administration gave for going to war with Iraq. " For

more, see American Progress's Claim vs. Fact database

on the topic.

 

MEET KEVIN KELLEMS #8211; EXPERT ADVISER ON LYING

ABOUT IRAQ: Cheney's top spokesperson, Kevin Kellems,

tried to spin the Commission's rebuke into a statement

that supported Cheney's position. He said, " We are

pleased with today's statement from the 9-11

commission which puts to rest a non-story. " Kellems,

of course, has been a key player in perpetuating myths

about Iraq: not only has he served as Cheney's top

spokesman in misleading the public about Iraq's WMD,

al Qaeda ties, and Halliburton contracts, he also

served as top press adviser to Deputy Defense

Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the run up to the

invasion, when Wolfowitz was parroting many of the

same myths. See some of Wolfowitz's pre-war

falsehoods, and see this example of Kellems trying to

cut off an interview when a Washington Post reporter

was pressing Wolfowitz for answers on why his WMD

claims had proven false.

 

FOX NEWS'S ROLE IN PUSHING THE SADDAM-AL QAEDA MYTH:

Last month, Fox News did its part to perpetuate the

Bush administration's myth of an Iraq-al Qaeda

alliance. When the New York Times reported on a

document detailing Osama bin Laden's efforts to

contact Iraqi intelligence in the mid 1990s, Hannity

and Colmes said there was " new evidence of Iraqi ties

to bin Laden. " What they did not point out was that

" members of the Pentagon task force that reviewed the

document said it described no formal alliance being

reached between Mr. bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence. "

They task force also said, " the document contains no

statement of response by the Iraqi leadership under

Mr. Hussein to the request for joint operations, and

there is no indication of discussions about attacks on

the United States or the use of unconventional

weapons. " When the Washington Post's Jeff Birnbaum

pointed out that " there was never any sort of

operational collaboration that [iraq and Al Qaeda]

worked together, " he was interrupted by Brit Hume, who

said, " Whoa, whoa, whoa. As far as we know of. "

 

WHITE HOUSE TRUMPS UP NEW WMD CHARGES: On the same day

British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged the

prospect that no WMD would be found in Iraq, the Bush

administration renewed its effort to claim Iraq had

WMD. Specifically, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham

yesterday announced that old radioactive material was

being moved out of Iraq, calling it ''a major

achievement " in an attempt to ''keep potentially

dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of

terrorists. " What he did not say was that " none of the

materials were usable in a nuclear bomb " and that they

were moved from Tuwaitha, a well-known nuclear

facility in Iraq " largely shut down after the Persian

Gulf war of 1991. " That material moved was not weapons

grade, but instead in the form " commonly used to

provide radiation for cancer treatments, or for

industrial X-rays " and " to sterilize medical equipment

or kill bacteria in food. "

 

MORE EFFORTS TO DEFLECT BLAME FOR WMD FAILURE: The New

York Times reports that the Senate Select Committee on

Intelligence will issue a report claiming the CIA

failed to give pre-war information to President Bush

that cast doubts on whether Iraq had WMD. What the

story did not say was that the White House was

repeatedly warned that its WMD case for war was weak.

See American Progress's report.

 

JUDICIARY

The War on Women

 

Displaying a shocking indifference to women's rights,

6 Democrats and 45 Republicans confirmed Bush nominee

James Leon Holmes to a lifetime appointment on the

federal bench in Arkansas. Holmes, a Little Rock

attorney who supports a constitutional amendment

banning abortion, once wrote that " concern for rape

victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape

occur with approximately the same frequency as

snowfall in Miami. " Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) noted

that " 30,000 American girls and women become pregnant

each year from rape or incest. " But Sen. Jeff Sessions

(R-AL) was unconcerned, saying Holmes's callous remark

about rape victims was " a literary device called

exaggeration for effect. " Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR),

who voted to confirm Holmes, said that he " apologized

for that comment [and] acknowledged it was wrong. " But

Holmes has never acknowledged he was wrong. In a

carefully worded letter, Holmes apologized,

" regardless of the merits of the issue, " only for his

" articulation. "

 

HOLMES BELIEVES WIVES SHOULD BE SUBORDINATE: Holmes

has a history of publicly denigrating women. In 1997,

Holmes wrote that a " wife is to subordinate herself to

her husband. " There is no indication that Holmes has

apologized in any way for that comment. Rick Santorum

(R-PA) went out of his way to note that he agreed with

Holmes's view of marriage. Holmes has also " compared

pro-choice advocates to Nazis and abortion to

slavery. "

 

NOTE TO FOX #8211; MEN CAN CARE ABOUT WOMEN'S RIGHTS:

Fox News published an article on their web site

headlined: " Women Senators Balk at Controversial

Nominee. " In fact, responsible Senators of both

genders were critical of Holmes's misogynistic

comments. Male senators were some of the most

impassioned critics. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VA) said

that Holmes has " revealed how tightly his mind is

closed to seeing the realities of the world. His

statements also reveal a callous disregard for the

trauma of women who are raped, and a disturbing,

willful ignorance of the facts. " Richard Durbin (D-IL)

said, " Holmes's statements...do not embody

contemporary standards that should be followed by any

federal judge in any state. " Both Durbin and Leahy

voted against Holmes's confirmation.

 

RIGHT-WING INSENSITIVE QUOTE OF THE DAY: " It means

stupid, dirty girl. " #8211; California Education

Secretary Richard Riordan, when asked by a little girl

if he knew that her first name, Isis, meant " Egyptian

goddess. "

 

GOVERNMENT #8211; HHS ABSOLVES ITSELF: It was all

true. According to the New York Times, " An internal

investigation by the Department of Health and Human

Services confirms that the top Medicare official

threatened to fire the program's chief actuary if he

told Congress that drug benefits would probably cost

much more than the White House acknowledged. " Last

year, HHS's top Medicare official, Thomas Scully,

threatened to fire Medicare's actuary Richard Foster

if Foster revealed to Congress that the estimate for

the cost of the new Medicare legislation was actually

$500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years. (To get

the bill passed, the White House told Congress the

cost would not exceed $400 billion). However, this

internal investigation of HHS (by HHS) decided, not

surprisingly, that this use of threats didn't break

any laws. As House Ways and Means Committee Ranking

Member Charles Rangel (D-NY) put it, conservatives in

power " are ganging up on the people to prevent them

from learning the truth about what is going on. Why

then would it surprise anyone that the Bush

administration HHS inspector general would try to make

this story go away? "

 

HEALTH CARE #8211; HALF MEASURES FOR THE POOR: The

skyrocketing cost of health care is causing at least

one state to place " bold new limits on prescriptions,

doctor visits and medical treatments " for the poor.

The plan, proposed by Tennessee and possibly

attractive to other states looking to control health

care costs, " would limit the number of prescriptions

and doctor visits for any patient and direct doctors

to use the cheapest treatment alternative. " While

Tennessee's proposed plan constitutes one way to avoid

cutting people off the rolls, experts worry it " would

create a second-class health system in which saving

money, not healing the sick, is the primary concern. "

The Bush administration, whose much-touted Medicare

legislation has so far failed to reduce costs for

recipients, " generally has encouraged states to seek

cost savings. "

 

IRAQ #8211; PENTAGON DEPUTY HELPING OUT HIS FRIENDS: A

senior Defense Department official, John A. " Jack "

Shaw, allegedly represented himself as an agent of the

Pentagon's inspector general while conducting

investigations of the Iraqi reconstruction effort,

which he then used to secure " lucrative contracts for

friends and their business clients. " The LA Times

reports Shaw, who held top positions in the Reagan and

George H. W. Bush administrations, urged government

officials to fix problems he fabricated " by directing

multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to

his friends, without competitive bidding. " In one

case, " Shaw disguised himself as an employee of

Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in

southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S.

military#8230; In another, he criticized a competition

sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional

Authority to award cell phone licenses in Iraq. "

Shaw's actions, which he justified under a special

agreement with Pentagon inspector general, Joseph E.

Schmitz, " are the latest to raise concerns that senior

Republican officials working in Washington and Iraq

have used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward

associates and political allies. "

 

AIDS #8211; THE EPIDEMIC: According to a new United

Nations report, " The proportion of the world's new

H.I.V. infections occurring in Asia has risen sharply

in the past two years. " Also, HIV infections last year

were " the highest of any year since the epidemic was

recognized more than two decades ago. " This comes just

a day after the Wall Street Journal reported the

United States has been trying to limit the use of

cheaper generic drugs in the fight against AIDS, in

order to protect powerful pharmaceutical companies.

 

#160;Don't Miss

DAILY TALKING POINTS: Iraq: The Wrong War on Terrorism

 

PUBLIC OPINION WATCH: Ruy Teixeira says President Bush

is in trouble

 

IRAQ: Defense Department official conducted

unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction

efforts, using results to snag lucrative contracts for

friends.

 

AIDS: United Nations reports the global fight against

AIDS will cost quadruple the current level of

spending.

 

EDUCATION: Lawmakers leaving Head Start behind.

 

Contact The Progress Report:

pr.

 

 

 

 

#160;Daily Grill

 

" Probably. "

 

#8211; Vice President Cheney's response to a question

about whether he knew things the 9/11 Commission did

not, 6/17/04

 

VERSUS

 

" After examining available transcripts of the vice

president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission

believes it has access to the same information the

vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al

Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks. "

 

#8211; 9/11 Commission statement, 7/7/04

 

#160;Daily Outrage

James Leon Holmes, the Bush nominee confirmed

yesterday to a lifetime appointment on the federal

bench in Arkansas, has a history of expressing

decidedly anti-woman sentiments. He once wrote that

" concern for rape victims is a red herring because

conceptions from rape occur with approximately the

same frequency as snowfall in Miami. " He also has

written that a " wife is to subordinate herself to her

husband. "

 

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