Dick Cheney is a habitual misleader,

On Iraq

"[Saddam] provided a safe-haven for terrorists over the years ... he had a relationship with al Qaeda."

FACT: A new CIA assessment – which Cheney himself requested months ago – states, "there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi." One U.S. official stated, "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything." [Knight Ridder, 10/5/04]

FACT: The Sept. 11 Commission found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. [Washington Post, 6/17/04]

FACT: CIA interrogators found "Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam." [New York Times, 1/14/04]

FACT: The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda found "no evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein." [New York Times, 6/27/03]

FACT: A British Intelligence report found "no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al Qaeda network." [BBC, 2/5/03]

FACT: "Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Saddam's links with al Qaeda
"We're also working very hard to stand up Iraqi security forces, training and equipping the Iraqis so that they'll be able to take on the fight and be responsible for providing for their own security just as quickly as possible."

FACT: Last Monday, the Pentagon said that "only about 53,000 of the 100,000 Iraqis on duty have now undergone training." According to Pentagon documents obtained by Reuters, of the 90,000 in the police force, "only 8,169 have received full training." [AP, 6/10/04]

FACT: Last week, the U.S. military "arrested a senior commander of the nascent Iraqi National Guard." The commander was arrested on suspicion of "having associations with known insurgents." The move raised concerns "about the loyalty and reliability of the new security forces just months before general elections are scheduled across the embattled country." [New York Times, 9/29/04]

"Iraq for years was listed by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror."

FACT: That didn't stop Cheney from doing business with Saddam's regime. "The United States had concluded that Iraq, Libya, and Iran supported terrorism and had imposed strict sanctions on them. Yet during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton the company did business in all three countries." [New Yorker, 2/9/04]

FACT: "Halliburton Co., the oil company that was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, signed contracts with Iraq worth $73 million through two subsidiaries while he was at its helm." [UPI, 6/23/01]

FACT: Halliburton is being investigated by a grand jury for doing business – while Cheney was CEO – with Iran, also listed as a "state sponsor of terror" by the State Department. "The grand jury has subpoenaed various documents covering Halliburton's Iranian operations, a sign some evidence has surfaced indicating the company knowingly violated" U.S. anti-terror sanctions. [Washington Times, 7/22/04]