I know, it’s a loaded title, but at some point you just have to admit that Cheney is the kind of guy who doesn’t understand that if he keeps saying “it was the other guy’s fault” that eventually the proverbial finger comes around and is pointing right at him.

I’ve written about this on Schneier’s blog numerous times, and I hope everyone remembers that Cheney was the primary reason that the Bush Administration ignored the intelligence warnings about al Qaeda before 9/11. There was no shortage of information, as Cheney would like to suggest. Quite the opposite, Bush said during his campaign that he would deal with those responsible for the USS Cole bombing if he were elected…and yet when the information clearly pointed to al Qaeda in February 2001, who decided that the CIA had better things to do than worry about terrorists? And when Clarke recommended a roll-back strategy and a very targeted attack on al Qaeda training camps in February 2001, who wasn’t willing to take decisive action?

Reuters brings us some sad news:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday strongly defended a secret domestic eavesdropping operation and said that had it been in place before the September 11 attacks the Pentagon might have been spared

Does he really expect us to believe that if the President could have used domestic wire-taps that they would have been better prepared for 9/11? Please.

Not only did they have the information necessary, but the 9/11 report itself said that the mistake was clearly NOT from a lack of intelligence, it was from a lack of coordination and leadership. Remember how Bush and Cheney ignored the Hart-Rudman recommendations, how Lynne Cheney resigned from the Hart-Rudman commission, how the FBI admitted that they had sufficient information but were procedurally constrained and under-trained? History will show that Cheney was no better than Mugabe, wrapping himself in the flag and claiming that he is protecting us from ourselves. Bush and Cheney fail to realize that it is their antiquated cold-war approach to a new era of geopolitical challenges that is damaging their country. The sooner he steps down from office, the sooner America can regain its strength.