Fact checking:

In the New York Post, John Podhoretz pens an essay entitled "CHENEY WAS RIGHT". He claims the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report and the Butler report exonerate Bush and Blair. In it we read: (excerpts)

... both reports agree that Iraq was trying to figure out ways to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa.

Now let's flash back, shall we, to a speech many now consider notorious. That was Vice President Dick Cheney's address on the Iraqi threat on Aug. 26, 2002, which was the opening salvo in the Bush administration's relentless case for removing Saddam from power.

"We know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney said — words that caused bloggers on the left and others to demand Cheney's resignation last year.

Well, Cheney's argument has now been validated by the findings of both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the British report.

We think the issue of Iraq and yellowcake is still debatable. But let's pass that up for now. What else did Cheney say? From the White House transcript of the August speech:

• The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents.
  
  
• What he wants is time and more time to husband his resources, to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs ...
  
  
• Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

In the statements listed above, pace Podhoretz, Cheney was wrong.

posted by Quiddity at 7/15/2004 10:22:00 AM