Now He Tells Us

On a day when the biggest news seemed to be that Eminem "faked" his outrage at having the bare backside of Sacha Baron Cohen drop in his lap, we also got the following quote: “On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that. There was some reporting early on, for example, that Mohammed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official, but that was never borne out.” These words came out of the head of Dick "Dick" Cheney during an interview Monday night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.
Repeat after me: Never any evidence. Never. And who is to blame? The Intelligence Community. “They misread Saddam Hussein's intent when he invaded Kuwait in 1990,” Cheney said. “They underestimated the extent of the Iraqi program to try to acquire nuclear capability back in '90 and '91. They missed 9/11.” He explained the early uncertainty of the connection by insisting that intelligence gathering is “more an art form than a science.” Gee, that's too bad. I was kind of hoping that it was a science. An exact science. The kind that would provide evidence to back up hypotheses. A science that would lead to concrete conclusions that could be documented and studied. Not abstract expressionism, the kind that gave us "weapons of mass destruction."
Don't get him wrong, he still has nice things to say about our spies: “The intelligence community has had some enormous successes in the last few years,” he said. “You usually don't hear about the successes. What you hear about are the train wrecks, the things that didn't work out quite right.” It's true. Just like Barack Obama decided to meet with the winners of this year's Super Bowl rather than the losers. But if it didn't bear mention, why is he taking the time at this late date to bring it up? Slow news day.