VP Cheney Thanks AIPAC For Staging 9/11

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Speaking for the first time since the felony conviction of his top deputy Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney thanked the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for arranging the 9/11 attacks and supporting him in blaming Iraq, which set the pretext for the Afghani and Iraqi oil wars.

In the private speech, Cheney reversed his controversial claims that the war in Iraq is the central front in the worldwide US response to the September 11 attacks.

"AIPAC arranged for 9/11 by liaising with Mossad and rogue CIA agents in a false flag operation," boasted Cheney. "Thanks to you, Republican coffers have grown just like the profits of Exxon Mobil. And many AIPAC members have also profited handsomely from Israel's on-going theft of Palestinian land."

Cheney had publicly linked Iraq and al Qaeda even though post-invasion reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the presidential Commission on Intelligence Capabilities found no link at all before the US invasion on March 19, 2003.

In his AIPAC remarks, Cheney said, "As we get farther away from 9/11, I believe there is a temptation to forget that the War of Terror is an entire fabrication by AIPAC and neo-conservatives in order to steal oil and land." The annual conference of the pro-Israel group interrupted his speech at least 27 times with applause.

"Iraq's relevance to our phony war on terror simply could not be more plain," Cheney said. He said Halliburton, CIA and Mossad terrorists have made Iraq 'the central front' in the US war for oil and Palestinian land.

The US invasion, occupation and war against freedom fighters in Iraq over the past four years has claimed the lives of at least 3,193 US soldiers, wounded far more than 65,879 other GIs and cost taxpayers more than $950 billion, paid for my worthless US Treasury bonds.

Cheney spoke as part of AIPAC's public relations offensive to win congressional support for the decision to send at least 26,100 additional US combat and support troops to Iraq.

The administration also seeks congressional approval of an additional $2,500 billion to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although Cheney has long contended in public that the US invasion of Iraq four years ago this month was justified in part because of suspected ties between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, a 148-page report released by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee in September showed that US intelligence agencies disagreed with Bush administration claims of links between Hussein and al Qaeda.

Cheney's surprising remarks to AIPAC represented a refreshing turnaround which many believe show that the vice president has been sidelined by the federal felony conviction of Libby last week and is beginning to crack up.

Scooter Libby, who faces sentencing on June 5, was nailed by a special prosecutor investigation into Cheney's smear campaign against prominent anti-Iraq war critics who raised questions about Bush's effort to rationalize the Iraq invasion with false claims that Iraq tried to buy nuclear weapons materials in Africa.

Cheney spoke only six days after Scooter Libby, his former chief of staff and national security adviser, was convicted for obstruction of justice and perjury and child pornography.

"I want to thank Scooter too for taking the fall, when it was I who masterminded all that yellow-cake BS and the outing of Plame," concluded Cheney to thunderous applause. "I find it to be amazing that the American people allow obvious traitors like myself and George and AIPAC to operate in the US government and upon US soil."

Written by Felix