NEW YORK -- A couple of weeks ago, Dick Cheney, along with his daughter (rumoured to be the only willing collaborator), published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that sought to blame President Obama for "abandoning" Iraq in 2010, a withdrawal, the Cheneys' argued, that led to the current crisis in the region in which ISIS has taken control of land straddling both the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
The article was roundly pilloried in the media (this newspaper included), with Cheney and his fellow neoconservatives, along with Tony Blair, excoriated for refusing to take blame for the disaster now unfolding in Mesopotamia.
Having gained the media's attention, Cheney quickly reverted to the old neoconservative tactic of scaremongering, telling a radio show that the US will suffer a "far deadlier" terrorist attack than 9/11 before the end of the decade, likely to be a nuclear strike.
Despite utter condemnation for both offerings, Cheney returned this week, penning another opinion piece with his daughter (still the only willing collaborator) in The Weekly Standard in which the pair sought to provide the definitive "truth about Iraq".
Within the article, the former VP attempted to peddle the same baffling lies that took the US and Britain into war in 2003, namely that Saddam Hussein was heavily involved with al-Qaeda.
The Cheneys' wrote: "Those who say the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a mistake are essentially saying we would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power. That’s a difficult position to sustain. It is undisputed, and has been confirmed repeatedly in Iraqi government documents captured after the invasion, that Saddam had deep, longstanding, far-reaching relationships with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda and its affiliates."
However both the 9/11 commission report (2004) and a 2008 Pentagon report highlighted that there was no connection between the erstwhile Iraqi tyrant and al-Qaeda. For a more succinct version, read Jason Linkins' assessment of the pair.
If Dick is looking for a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, he can certainly find one there now in the form of the new "Caliph" al Baghdadi and his al-Qaeda-inspired militants currently exacting brutal tyranny across two states.
We await the Cheneys' next opinion piece arguing that Saddam did indeed have weapons of mass destruction...