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(回答先: 米副大統領、イラク開戦前の情報歪曲批判に反論 投稿者 ワヤクチャ 日時 2005 年 11 月 22 日 22:22:41)
チェイニーはイラク戦争「リヴィジョニズム」を「恥知らず」と見なす（ＮＹタイムズ）
１１月２１日付のニューヨークタイムズの記事で、米国副大統領ディック･チェイニーが、イラク戦争について、米国人は嘘に基づいて戦場に送られたと言う政治家たちは『最も腐敗して恥知らずな類のリヴィジョニズムだ』と述べ上げたことを報道しています。（「リヴィジョニズム」という用語にもいろんな便利な使い方があるらしい。）
報道されているチェイニーの言葉からもう一つ。『諜報の欠陥は後から見たら明らかなのだが、戦前の情報が国の指導者によって歪曲、誇大化あるいは捏造されたものだという指摘はすべて完璧な嘘だ。』
以下にニューヨークタイムズの記事を貼り付けておきます。
･･････････････････････････････････････････････････・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/politics/22cheney.html?th&emc=th
Cheney Sees 'Shameless' Revisionism on War
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Vice President Dick Cheney stepped up the White House attacks on critics of the Iraq war on Monday, declaring that politicians who say Americans were sent into battle based on a lie are engaging in "revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety."
In remarks delivered at the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Cheney briefly said he considered debate over the war healthy, and he echoed President Bush's recent praise of Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has called for an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, as "a good man, a marine, a patriot."
But the vice president quickly made clear that after a week of criticism of Mr. Bush on Capitol Hill, the White House would not relent in its campaign against critics of the war and those who say the administration manipulated the intelligence that led to it.
Mr. Cheney decided last week, as the debate was intensifying, to time his speech for maximum impact by giving it on an otherwise quiet Monday, the first day that Congress was out of town on recess and while Mr. Bush was traveling back to Washington from a trip to Asia. The forum he chose is a conservative research organization at which his wife, Lynne, is a senior fellow.
"The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight, but any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false," Mr. Cheney said. "Senator John McCain put it best: 'It is a lie to say that the president lied to the American people.' "
Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican and former North Vietnamese prisoner of war, has had an off-again- on-again relationship with the White House, but has supported the war and called for additional troops in Iraq.
The vice president made clear that he was distinguishing between his personal regard for Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam veteran, and what he considered the consequences of Mr. Murtha's proposed policies. Mr. Murtha returned to his district Monday, as his constituents tried to come to grips with his new role as a war critic.
Mr. Cheney said an early withdrawal from Iraq would be a "terrible blow" to the security of the United States, and painted a bleak picture of terrorists' ambitions in Iraq.
"The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country," he said, "they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States."
Mr. Cheney repeated a formulation from a speech he made last week, calling the suggestion by some senators that the administration manipulated prewar intelligence "dishonest and reprehensible." Democrats immediately rejected that characterization. They also objected to Mr. Cheney's assertion that members of Congress had had access to the administration's prewar intelligence and that "they concluded, as the president and I had concluded, that Saddam Hussein was a threat."
Mr. Cheney did not mention that the administration had access to far more extensive intelligence than Congress did, like the highly classified daily briefing provided for the president by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Even as he took issue with the administration's critics, the vice president said debate had an essential place in democracy, a point that Mr. Bush emphasized in China on Sunday. "This is not an issue of who's patriot and who's not patriotic," Mr. Bush said. "It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."
Mr. Cheney said, "Disagreement, argument and debate are the essence of democracy, and none of us should want it any other way." In a rare personal reference, he said, "For my part, I've spent a career in public service, run for office eight times - six statewide offices and twice nationally. I served in the House of Representatives for better than a decade, most of that time as a member of the leadership of the minority party.
"To me, energetic debate on issues facing our country is more than just a sign of a healthy political system, it's also something I enjoy. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in this business."
Leading Democrats denounced Mr. Cheney's remarks, issuing a point-by-point rebuttal to the major points in his speech.
"The vice president and this administration have a credibility problem," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said in a statement. "Rather than giving our troops a plan to move forward in Iraq and changing their failed course, they continue to ignore the facts and lash out at those who raise legitimate questions about how the administration misused intelligence in its rush to war."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement, "The only thing dishonest and reprehensible is the way the administration distorted, misrepresented and manipulated the intelligence to justify a war America never should have fought," adding, "It defies belief that the vice president can continue to say with a straight face that Congress had the same intelligence as the president and vice president had."
Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran against Mr. Bush for president in 2004, said Mr. Cheney was "still misleading America" about the war.
Mr. Cheney's remarks closely tracked a speech on terrorism by Mr. Bush in Tobyhanna, Pa., on Nov. 11, that suggested that Democrats were undermining the war effort by accusing him of misleading the nation about Iraq's unconventional weapons. Mr. Cheney's remarks were also similar to the prepared text of a speech that Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, was scheduled to make in Chicago on Monday night.
"This kind of political doublespeak sends exactly the wrong message to our troops, to the Iraqis and to our terrorist enemies," the text said.
The White House is waging its campaign against war critics as Mr. Bush's approval ratings have sunk to record lows and polls have shown that he has lost credibility among voters. A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that 42 percent of Americans viewed Mr. Bush as honest, down from 53 percent in the beginning of the year.
But the White House has also tempered its initial response to Mr. Murtha, a combat veteran who voted for the Iraq war. After Mr. Murtha called last week for the pullout of 153,000 American troops from Iraq within six months, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, issued an unusually critical statement declaring that Mr. Murtha was endorsing "the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
Administration officials now say the language was too strong, and on Sunday Mr. Bush referred to Mr. Murtha, one of the House's most respected experts on military matters, as "a fine man, a good man" whose decision to call for a withdrawal of troops was done in a "careful and thoughtful way."
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