July 17, 2003

EDITED BY DAVID BOGUS

“Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence,” reports The Independent:

Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war.

The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation.

The article is co-written by Andrew Buncombe.

Posted by Tim Blair at July 17, 2003 10:47 AM
Comments

What a great name for a lefty writer! In America, buncombe (sometimes bunkum) is a noun meaning "insincere or foolish talk, nonsense"--or for the plain-spoken, "bullshit."

Posted by: Ron at July 17, 2003 at 11:17 AM

I hereby call for the resignation of the senior former intelligence officials.

Posted by: Sophorist at July 17, 2003 at 11:29 AM

I think this article will provide some useful rebuttal information.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003753
Bob Houston,Texas

Posted by: Bob Carter at July 17, 2003 at 12:31 PM

That's kind of funny if you think about it. "Senior former intelligence officials" vs "former senior intelligence officials. One group is could consist entirely of retired costodial staff from Langley.

Posted by: Charles at July 17, 2003 at 01:09 PM

I happened to hear an interview with one of the V.I.P.S guys (the group of retired former intelligence dorks) on NPR yesterday - the bona fide mentioned by the spokesman was his background in analysing Pravda for indications of what was going on in the Kremlin - yep, one of the CIA guys that consistently got the picture of what was going on in Russia WRONG! He cited his superior skills developed doing that job as his cred for the conclusion these bozos have come up with that Cheney is the big time behind the scenes mover and shaker on the 'bogus intel' scene - from their analysis of the media stories on what's been happening.

No wonder these idiots were so consistently off base about Russia....

Posted by: Wind Rider at July 17, 2003 at 02:27 PM

Cheney is a Hawk? When did that happen?

The Opinion Journal post says that several of the intellegence experts are connected with left-wing goups.

Posted by: Ralph M at July 17, 2003 at 03:29 PM

What about the people who told us we were going to get slaughtered in Iraq by the Republican Guard? Or we'd see the 'Arab Street' rise up in great numbers against us? (Insert various predictions of doom and defeat here...)

These people were lying, just as much as anyone, will these people resign too? I *demand* a Congressional Investigation so we can waste more time and money bashing people we don't like.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at July 17, 2003 at 04:51 PM

William Sjostrom over at Atlantic Blog has some interesting stuff running on this since Tuesday. Check out the links.

www.atlanticblog.com

Posted by: Edmund Burke at July 17, 2003 at 10:42 PM

Actually, National Public Radio did an interview with the "Concerned Inteligence officers for sanity" of whatever they call themselves.

They have 32 members. The spokesman wouldn't say how high up the food chain any of their members were, and very frankly, they could have come from the support staff of engineers, technicians, or whatever other departments are there. So the weight of their complaints are nil and requires us to make a huge leap of faith - even harder given that his patois didn't sound that different than parroted chants of the demonstrators that DC attracts.

If there is any such "pressure" to get Cheyney to resign, it would be news to me, and I live in Washington DC, (which in large part is politically liberal in its' feelings) and read most of the major papers daily.

32 cranky guilt-riddled ex-spooks with some improbable moral vanity can hardly be called a great groundswell of support, and the folks at the Independant need to put their bongs down and take a personal inventory.

Posted by: Joe at July 17, 2003 at 11:59 PM

"The Opinion Journal post says that several of the intellegence experts are connected with left-wing goups."

OH, SAY IT ISN'T SO!

I hope the President asks these bedwetters what elections they've won.

Posted by: Dave Himrich at July 18, 2003 at 03:03 PM