Cheney Continues Attacks on War Critics

It's interesting that Cheney has given up claiming that the Congress had the same information that the Whitehouse did, and has shifted to basically saying "trust us". Interesting too is his claim that the onus on Saddam was to prove that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, as if the Whitehouse had no obligation to the American people to ensure that the reasons given for going to war actually had merit.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President
Dick Cheney denied on Monday that the administration was trying to stifle dissent by lashing out at
Iraq war critics, but said he drew the line at what he called shameless charges by some Democrats that the president distorted prewar intelligence.

"This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere in American politics, much less in the United States Senate," Cheney said.

Cheney, who was a leading voice in the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion in warning of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda, said the administration presented the best available intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs.

Cheney said it had not been Washington's responsibility to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before launching the 2003 Iraq invasion but it was up to Saddam to show that he did not have them.

Cheney acknowledged that "flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight." But Cheney added: "Any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped, fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false."

Cheney's comments were the latest in an acrimonious political debate in Washington over the progress and origins of the war at a time when President George W. Bush's popularity rating is at its lowest.