Cheney 'Pushes the Envelope' on Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection(new term for LIES

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney27sep27.story

Cheney 'Pushes the Envelope' on Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection(new term for LIES)
Critics say the vice president's campaign statements on terrorism 'blur the lines.'
By James Gerstenzang
Times Staff Writer

September 27, 2004

WARRENTON, Mo. — The phrases vary. Some days, Vice President Dick Cheney says Saddam Hussein had "long-established" ties to Al Qaeda. Other days, he says the onetime Iraqi dictator "had a relationship" with the terrorist group.

But the underlying message remains unchanged — Cheney plants the idea that Hussein was allied with the group responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Although the extent of the Al Qaeda-Hussein relationship — if it existed — has been widely disputed, Cheney proceeds with nary a nod toward such questions.

And in doing so, he draws a line from the war in Iraq, on which public opinion is divided, to the larger war on terrorism, for which President Bush wins greater support.

"When voters look at Iraq as a standalone issue … it is a horrible situation for the president," said Charles Cook, a nonpartisan political analyst in Washington. "But when it is woven into the fabric of a global war on terrorism, people are more accepting of it as the price we have to pay."

Cheney slips his reference to Hussein and Al Qaeda into his litany of Hussein's offenses: the regime's production and use of chemical weapons against enemies; support for the families of suicide bombers; Iraq's defiance of various U.N. resolutions.

Each has largely been established and is subject of little debate — with the exception of the tie to Al Qaeda.The bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks said it had found no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Hussein and the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. Its staff has said it had found "no credible evidence" that Iraq had cooperated with Al Qaeda in targeting the United States.
<snip>