Cheney Brings Failed “Stay The Course” Strategy To Missouri

A day after Donald Rumsfeld told the American people to "relax" about the war in Iraq, Vice President Cheney brought the Bush Administration's fear and smear tactics to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Vice President Cheney continued the Administration's attempts to scare the American public by using misleading rhetoric. Dick Cheney, George Bush and Republicans in Congress refuse to acknowledge the facts on the ground in Iraq, offering the American people no plan to win, only a stay-the-course strategy which is clearly not working. Democrats are committed to a new direction in Iraq that is both tough and smart.

"We need a new direction in America's foreign policy that puts the focus back on fighting and winning the real war on terror, not more of the Bush Administration's failed stay-the-course rhetoric," said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. "Instead of more fear and smear, misleading assertions and half-truths from Dick Cheney, the American people want a new direction. Democrats will aggressively fight the war on terror and offer a new direction in Iraq that is both tough and smart."

Cheney Says He Would Have Stuck to the Same Failed Strategy. "It was the right thing to do and if we had to do it over again we would do exactly the same thing? ... Yes, sir." [NBC, 9/10/06]

Cheney Still Insists on Link Between Iraq and Al Qaeda; Said He Hadn't Seen Reports Rebutting the Connection. When asked why the Administration promoting the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to justify the war in Iraq, Cheney stated, "So you've got Iraq and 9/11, no evidence that there's a connection. You've got Iraq and al Qaeda, testimony from the director of C.I.A. That there was indeed a relationship. Zarqawi in Baghdad, et cetera.I haven't seen the [Senate] report. We know that Zarqawi running the terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 after we went into 9-11, then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of 2002 and was there and then basically until the time we launched into Iraq." [NBC,9/10/06]