Breaking news: Dick Cheney tells a lie

(from Attytood.com)

Earlier today, Atrios said this:

When reporters take the words of liars and put them into print, they imbue those lies with their authority. Readers expect that newspapers are providing them with accurate information.

Good point, which is why someone needs to call Vice President Dick Cheney on this lie: The war in Iraq has had something to do with the lack of terror attacks on U.S. soil. Here's what he told Tim Russert's favorite radio personality, Sean Hannity, yesterday:

Taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do.

It's also, I think, in part responsible for the fact that we haven't been hit again in nearly five years. That's no accident. The fact is, we've taken the battle to the enemy. That's been the key to the safety and security of the American people these last few years, and we need to continue to do it. And we need to make certain that Iraq doesn't become a failed state, but instead the Iraqi people have an opportunity for self-government. And that's exactly what we're doing.

Well, a part of that is true: There has been no major terrorist attack on U.S, soil since 9/11/01. But since the issue at hand is Iraq, there has never been an attack of America by, or sponsored, by Iraq going all the way back to, oh, July 4, 1776, at least.

Does Cheney attribute the fact that we've never been attacked by Iraq for 230 years to the March 2003 invasion? -- that's what we would call a post-preemptive war, we guess. Or maybe it was the electronic surveillance program of President George Washington.

In the same interview, Cheney goes onto to say that "[t]here have been attacks all over the world, in London and Madrid and Bali and Istanbul, as well as New York and Washington; that the key to our success to date has been to actively and aggressively go on offense."

But he conflates two different types of attacks -- the ones in London, Madrid, as well as the group recently busted in Canada, involved not al-Qaeda so much as homegrown people who say there were radicalized by current events, including the war in Iraq.

But why listen to us when you can read it in Rupert Murdoch's Times of London:

THREE years after its invasion of Iraq the US Administration acknowledged yesterday that the war has become “a cause” for Islamic extremists worldwide and there is a risk of the country becoming a safe haven for terrorists hoping to launch fresh attacks on America.

More misdirection from the White House.

Also known as a lie.