Tricky Dick

An actual quote from the honorable Richard Cheney, Vice President of these United States, 7 October 2004:

“The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad. We already knew that,” Cheney said.

Some of you, especially you stoned slackers out there, may remember this part of the honorable President Bush’s State of the Union speech in 2003:

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin — enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He’s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them — despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

Some people may vaguely recall the honorable Colin Powell’s presentation before the United Nations in February 2003:

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan

My personal favorite, though, is the honorable VP himself, in an August 2002 speech to the VFW:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

So are they all, all honorable men.

[Also posted to my diary at DailyKos]