The Pentagon had to shut down the online translation website in 2005, as some of what was translated starting getting into sensitive territory. But jveritas’ work can still be analyzed here:

http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/

Del Dolemonte on May 26, 2009 at 4:17 PM

Thanks for posting that link!

I like Cheney. I am glad he is speaking out now, but where were theys guys when they should have been defending their policies while they were in office? When you lay it out the way it’s being laid out by them now, people get it. Perhaps up and coming conservatives will learn how it’s done. But why it wasn’t done during their administration is beyond me.

gstrickler on May 26, 2009 at 12:17 PM

VP Cheney spoke up now to set the record straight. The Obama administration released the interrogation memos that should never have been part of the public’s knowledge because they were protected for security reasons. Obama was acting out of pure political calculation in order to smear his predecessors.

Cheney’s response addressed the necessity for keeping our security procedures classified. For that reason, he and Bush never detailed (or justified) the steps that they had taken to protect our nation. Had they publicly trumpeted each thwarting of a plot as it occurred, they would have been skewered as fear-mongerers, and they would have been asked to provide proof, thereby giving away the methods for gleaning the intelligence.

Once Obama revealed half of the classified information, Cheney rightfully requested that the other half, the ones that demonstrated success and actionable intelligence, be presented.

Given the hostile media-shapers during the Bush administration, Cheney or Bush would have been vilified for making their case or not. The more articulate Cheney never addressed the issue to the American people because he was quietly doing his job behind the scenes just as he had done on 9/11.

Cheney has absolutely nothing to lose in speaking out forthrightly now. It is Obama, who is willfully withholding exculpatory evidence…and he is doing so for further political reasons.

Whoever tried to “keep Cheney off the big stage during Bush’s last term” was probably the same person who fed Scott Duh McClellan to the ravenous wolves of the White House press corps, gave us Harriet Miers for SCOTUS, and was totally tone-deaf on Katrina. Even when there was plenty of evidence to rebut the “no WMD’s in Iraq” meme in Saddam’s archives, nobody bothered to translate them and put the evidence squarely under the noses of the lying press. Without rebuttal, people believe the liars.

Steve Z on May 26, 2009 at 1:28 PM

1. As far as Hurricane Katrina, the Democrats in Louisiana were the ones who actually screwed the pooch on that one (not Bush, who had ordered a state of emergency in Louisiana 4 days before the hurricane hit). When their total incompetence started to emerge, these clowns enlisted their allies at the national DNC level to get a compliant mainstream media to shift the blame to Bush.

2. The DOD actually did put out Saddam’s captured documents online in an attempt to get them translated by others, as they had a shortage of translators at the time. Many were translated by volunteers, and as you say these conclusively showed Saddam’s guilt not only in the WMDs but also as far as his support for terrorism.

One of the best of these people was a blogger calling himself “jveritas”. Ed featured his translations on his old Captain’s Quarters blog, and in fact as I recall Ed even paid a couple of other outside translators to confirm what jveritas had translated.

But since the mainstream media’s template did not include the possibility that Chimpy was right, jveritas’ work was widely ignored, and they never reported it.

The Pentagon had to shut down the online translation website in 2005, as some of what was translated starting getting into sensitive territory. But jveritas’ work can still be analyzed here:

http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/

People who disliked Cheney mostly knew only what others said about him.

progressoverpeace on May 26, 2009 at 11:52 AM

And “what others said about him” was many times dishonest or outright lies.

One of the largest examples of a Democrat double standard on Cheney was going after his Halliburton ties, while conveniently ignoring that their hero Slick Willie had actually given Halliburton no-bid contracts himself.

And also swept down the memory hole by the Leftists was that Democrat President Lyndon Johnson had done business with KBR, later a part of Halliburton, since before Cheney had even been born.

Yes, I am kidding, sheesh, we all better work on our sarc skills, in the future it will be the only way to communicate effectively, without going to jail.

2Tru2Tru on May 26, 2009 at 1:51 PM

What, “They pretend to work for us, and we pretend to pay lip-service?”

I wish he’s run for President. We need an adult in the White House.

dogsoldier on May 26, 2009 at 2:50 PM

I don’t think he will. I think he just realizes that Obama and his fluffer media need to be schooled. But I do feel the need to say…

Cheney/Palin 2012

That is why Cheney is winning this public debate!

For example, if Mr. Obama is correct — that the very continued existence of Gitmo is a recruiting tool for extreme Islamist organizations — then how is it that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been so thoroughly routed, especially since 2006?

But, hey, don’t take my word for it.

Take the word of the expert, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who very recently said in an interview with Tavis Smalley:

“even with the violence over the last couple of weeks, the level of violence in Iraq is dramatically lower than it has been really from a year ago or from six months ago or anytime since 2004.

So I think that our commanders see these as isolated incidents. We’ve always said that al Qaeda retains the lingering capacity to try and have these spectacular events, but in terms of sectarian violence or broader violence of Iraqis against Iraqis, the levels of violence are really at their lowest level since 2003, 2004.

If recruitment is so good, why are they losing so badly?

Incidentally, Gates specifically attributed that recent uptick in violence in Iraq to local elections, saying that,

it’s more tied to trying to counter the positive aspects of the provincial elections and I think these are still localized attacks.

And if Obama is correct that the limited use of waterboarding on a few key top-level Islamist operatives a few years back continues to operate as a powerful recruitment tool for terror organizations, then how come we have not seen any successful attacks in this country or on United States interests since 9/11?

Consider this exchange from the interview with the Secretary of Defense:

MR. SMILEY: Speaking of being attacked at home, there are many who argue it’s not a matter of if, but when. Do you share that view no matter what we try to do to stop that, do you share that opinion?

SEC. GATES: Well, I don’t believe in inevitability. I believe that if you had asked nearly all Americans on September 12th, 2001, seven and a half years later — do you think there will have been another terrorist attack, 99 percent of people would have said, of course. But here we are seven and a half years later and there has not been another successful attack. The fact is though that there have been a number of plots that have been disrupted, both here and overseas, people planning, people conspiring to do these things, so we’ve seen enormous improvements in law enforcement and intelligence and cooperation and sharing of information, both internally in the United States and with other countries.

The threat is always out there. We have to be aggressive in taking it on, but I don’t think there is — I personally do not believe in inevitability in history.

Wasn’t Dick Cheney’s point that from a few key bits of intelligence that we were able to garner from a few key operatives, i.e., Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we were able to disrupt a few key plots and even turn a few would-be terrorists, whose ongoing participation in terror plots could have ultimately resulted in the deaths of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans?

Why is the Obama Administration refusing to release the two documents that Cheney requested be de-classified? As Stephen Hayes aptly points out therein, the heavily-redacted documents the Administration did release, were no doubt the subject of Amnesty International’s FOIA request as well . . . why weren’t they blocked by the same “technicality” used to block the Cheney request?

The American people are not stupid. They can see what is going on, and follow the public debate. And they do not like what they’re hearing from Obama.

Good for you Dick Cheney! Thank you for standing up for what is right. And, please, keep it up!

Does anyone else besides myself think that Cheney is gearing up for the Presidentual run?

upinak on May 26, 2009 at 11:47 AM

Nope. Well, at least not if he thinks there’s one person in the GOP who could really carry the banner instead of him. But I do think he’d run if he doesn’t see any real choices in the GOP field.

That’s what happens when people start to re-examine their beliefs. Obama’s constant babbling about needing to see all sides of every issue may end up having some unintended consequences. The fact that he, a vocal critic of Bush’s policies, is having to continue them is a very clear sign to some folks that maybe Bush wasn’t so evil after all.

I don’t know whose idea it was to keep Cheney off the big stage during Bush’s last term, but it was a bad idea. He is a formidable debater with tons of background and he oozes gravitas. Putting a muzzle on him only encouraged the nutroots. The donks have no one who comes close to matching him.

a capella on May 26, 2009 at 11:49 AM

Whoever tried to “keep Cheney off the big stage during Bush’s last term” was probably the same person who fed Scott Duh McClellan to the ravenous wolves of the White House press corps, gave us Harriet Miers for SCOTUS, and was totally tone-deaf on Katrina. Even when there was plenty of evidence to rebut the “no WMD’s in Iraq” meme in Saddam’s archives, nobody bothered to translate them and put the evidence squarely under the noses of the lying press. Without rebuttal, people believe the liars.

Cheney IS an excellent debater. After Bush had flubbed the first debate with Kerry and trailed in the polls, Cheney cleaned John Edwards’ clock in the VP debate, and Bush immediately surged ahead in polls after the VP debate. Perhaps some of the Bush PR people feared the repetition of the Cheney / Halliburton canard, but Cheney is probably the best communicator in the Bush Administration, with the possible exception of Tony Snow, for his regrettably brief time in the White House.

Since Cheney chose not to run in 2008, he is now a man with nothing to lose and a solid record to defend, and the brains to defend it. He’s one Republican with the courage to defend what he did, and give courage to the others hiding under their desks–it’s safe to come out now!

Does anyone else besides myself think that Cheney is gearing up for the Presidentual run?

upinak on May 26, 2009 at 11:47 AM

It may be a little early for that, and you don’t win elections with a 37% approval rating. But stranger things have happened–Barry Goldwater only got 36% in 1964, and Ronald Reagan ran on his ideas and won two landslides. Sometimes it’s a question of the time being right for a given candidate or his ideas.

But Cheney might become the leader, mentor, and kingmaker of the Republican party–he has the experience and brains to articulate intelligent positions on many issues, and after four years of Obama, could become the “adult in the room” that can offer “change we can REALLY believe in”.

He’s not very charismatic, but what if he was paired up with your favorite Governor, UpInAK?

so now that bambi broke the treasury, 2tru2tru, you expect the $13/mo to continue?

this is 3d grade math.