SCHAKOWSKY: BUSH ADMINISTRATIONS MISSTATEMENT OF THE DAY VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY AND IRAQ

JANUARY 22, 2004

SCHAKOWSKY: BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S MISSTATEMENT OF THE DAY -
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY AND IRAQ

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued today's "Bush Administration's Misstatement of the Day" on recent comments by Vice President Dick Cheney about Iraq.

President Bush proclaimed on 5/29/03 during an interview with TVP, Poland: "We found the weapons of mass destruction." And earlier that year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated during a nationally televised interview, "We know where the [WMD] are." (ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," 3/30/03)

However, in an interview with National Public Radio today, Vice President Cheney said about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: "It's going to take some additional, considerable period of time in order to look in all the cubby holes and the ammo dumps and all the places in Iraq where you might expect to find something like that."

Cheney added during the NPR interview: "I continue to believe -- I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government. I'm very confident that there was an established relationship there."

But the New York Times reported on January 9, 2004:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no "smoking gun" proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda. "I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection," Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. (NY Times, 1/9/04)