Cheney faces charges of misleading Congress to authorize use of force against Iraq

WASHINGTON, July 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is facing demands to step down over his role in making the case for invading Iraq, a leading British newspaper reported Wednesday, July 16.

In an open letter to U.S. President George Bush, a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe intelligence was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons, urged him to demand Cheney’s resignation, reported the Independent.

They accused the vice president of exploiting his office to insist on the inclusion of a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Niger in Bush's State of the Union address, it added.

The White House admitted last week that Bush was provided faulty information in the address and that his administration overstated the threat posed by the ousted Iraqi regime in the run up to attacking Iraq.

Cheney, the administration outspoken hawk over Iraq, was also charged with knowingly misleading Congress in seeking authorization for the use of force against Iraq, said the British daily.

Although there is no conclusive proof that Cheney was responsible for insisting that the claim be made in the speech, there is clear evidence of his interest in the alleged Niger deal, wrote the Independent.

The paper quoted former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson as saying he was asked by the CIA to go to Niger and investigate the claim upon a request from Cheney's office.

It also stressed that Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, admitted that during a CIA briefing "the Vice-President asked a question about the implication of the report".

In the run-up to war, Cheney repeatedly visited the CIA headquarters in Virginia, and, according to a senior CIA official, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here."

CIA Director George Tenet had recently accepted responsibility for approving Bush's speech.

But this raised suspicions that attacking the oil-rich country was based on false pretexts.

Three months into the U.S. and British forces trundled into Baghdad, no weapons of mass destruction have not been found.

Carl Levin, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee asserted that "the misleading statement about African uranium" was "negotiated and calculated" to make the case for waging war on Iraq.

Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, one of the most senior Democrats in Congress, decried "bankrupt" U.S. policy toward Iraq, which revealed "flawed, distorted and failed intelligence."