At an event in Des Moines Tuesday night, Vice President Cheney asserted that making the “wrong choice” in the November election would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack here in the states.

This is from an administration that failed to heed the intelligence provided regarding the incidents of Sept. 11 and then systematically bullied the same intelligence apparatus so it would exaggerate the threat faced from Saddam Hussein.

Bush appointees within the CIA first stifled information about the gathering threat from Osama bin Laden, and then at the behest of the administration supplied bogus information about Saddam that the CIA knew was unreliable.

The president then urged John Negroponte, who covered up human rights abuses by the CIA in Honduras from 1981-1985, to go to the United Nations to badger UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler to produce evidence regarding Iraq that didn’t exist. In the end, the Bush CIA appointees won the argument, and we are still awaiting the results of that evidence.

Bush, who gave us all nightmares with tales of enriched uranium, aluminum tubes and weapons that could reach us in 20 minutes, acknowledged that it was important to the American people to produce those weapons so we would know the sacrifice of our soldiers was not in vein. When they don’t turn up, just change the justification.

We’re supposed to just take your word for it, Dick? This simple act of hubris is an insult to voters and our democratic tradition. Oh, and about those weapons, Mr. President, we’re still waiting.

Patrick Hultman

Graduate Student

Political Science