In an interview on CNN, former Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that while there was no confirmation tying the deposed late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to the al Qaeda plot that brought down the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, the possibility still existed that there was collaboration.

Rather than telling host Wolf Blitzer that allegations about Hussien and 9/11 had been wrong, Cheney repeatedly said that there was no confirmation of the links:

BLITZER: But just to be precise, [Hussein] had no involvement with al Qaeda and planning or implementing 9/11?

CHENEY: He had no responsibility that we were ever able to confirm for 9/11. We were told right after 9/11, I received a briefing from the CIA provided to me by George Tenet that he had. [...]

BLITZER: But that turned out to be false?

CHENEY: Turned out to be false.

But at the time, he — supposedly, Mohamed Atta, who was the leader hijacker, had met with one of the senior officials of the Iraq intelligence service in Prague five months before 9/11. That was information provided to us by our intelligence.

BLITZER: False intelligence.

CHENEY: Yes, but you didn’t know it was false. The CIA didn’t come in and say this is false. There were months that went by that they in fact had that very much on their platter.

Now, in the final analysis, they were never able to confirm it. But initial reporting was that there had in fact been this cooperation if you will between Mohamed Atta and the head of Iraqi intelligence.

Watch the video:

CNN analyst Peter Bergen, commenting on the interview with Blitzer, said the “largest criminal investigation that has ever been being conducted in history” concluded that there were no ties:

[T]he United States government proved definitively that there was no link between Saddam and 9/11, that there was no meeting with Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, and the Iraq intelligence agent and that was known well before the war.

Another CNN analyst, Gloria Borger, said Cheney was the “last person standing who seemed to believe that Mohamed Atta had been in Prague that day” to meet with Iraqi intelligence about the 9/11 attacks.

An editorial in today’s Washington Post strongly suggests, once again, that the paper’s editors have not seriously reflected on the role that they played in promoting the false case for the Iraq invasion, and are intent on reprising their role as the establishment media’s chief promulgator of alarmist scenarios, now with Iran.

Recognizing that the Obama administration “deserves credit for the diplomatic effort that produced stricter sanctions,” the editors nevertheless assert that “Iran’s leaders have not been deterred from their goal of producing a weapon, and the project is making steady progress”:

Despite the loss of centrifuges, Iran’s rate of enrichment is nearly double what it was in 2009, according to a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center. The center estimates that, should Iran decide on a “breakout” strategy of rapidly producing the highly enriched uranium for a weapon, it could do so in as little as 62 days — and that by the end of next year that timeline could fall to 12 days, making it possible to produce the core material for a bomb between visits by international inspectors.

While it’s increasingly clear that Iran is determined to obtain a nuclear weapons capability, the position of the U.S. intelligence community is that there is still insufficient evidence to determine that the Iranian government has decided to actually produce a nuclear weapon. Given both the domestic political import and the likely international reaction to such a decision, as well what it suggests about the continuing possibility of influencing that decision, this is not a minor distinction. Yet the editorial irresponsibly skates right over it.

I spoke to Peter Crail of the Arms Control Association, who noted that the Post’s editorial also “gets a few [other] facts wrong”:

While Iran is enriching uranium with the advanced machines, this is currently for testing purposes and not for production. Iran [claimed it] was going to triple production of 20% with the advanced machines, but now that they are installing the older ones instead, this tripling is not slated to occur yet. Granted, that’s only a matter of time, likely months.

Iran gave itself until the end of their year (March 20) to complete the process of moving production to Fordow with the new machines. They can probably make that time line, but they missed the initial timeline of installing the new centrifuges this summer.

“Not to mention,” Crail concluded, “part of the reason for those delays are the very sanctions and denial efforts that the Washington Post calls ‘past measures’ and says the administration shouldn’t be boasting about.”

More troubling than these basic errors in fact, however, is the editorial’s suggestion that even intrusive inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not be enough to satisfy:

With its focus on the Arab Spring and other international challenges, U.S. policy hasn’t taken account of these developments; in fact, it appears adrift. The administration’s reaction to the new IAEA report was so low-key as to be virtually nonexistent. In the vacuum, others are offering bad initiatives. Russia has proposed that sanctions be lifted on Iran if it deigns to answer long-outstanding IAEA questions about explicitly military dimensions of its program, such as warhead designs. On Monday, Tehran played on this idea, offering five years of “full supervision” of its nuclear work if sanctions are ended.

The United States will surely oppose these plans. But it needs its own strategy for responding to Iran’s advances. Boasting about the effect of past measures is not enough when Tehran’s behavior remains unchanged.

While Iran’s recent offer of inspections in return for lifting sanctions is by no means a game changer, it is a significant development in that it’s the first offer of its kind in over two years. Simply dismissing it out of hand would be a great way to demonstrate bad faith, and could diminish the considerable international support that the Obama administration has been able to garner over the past two and a half years. It could also undercut the efforts that President Obama has made to demonstrate to the Iranian people that it is their regime, not an aggressive United States, that is the problem. At the very least, the opportunity should be explored.

Unanswered questions about Iran’s nuclear program remain a key concern for the U.S. and its allies, but the fact is that there is only one way that the program will be brought under control in a way that sufficiently addresses those concerns: Inspections. The only question is whether those inspections will take place under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or under the guns of occupying U.S. troops. The Washington Post’s editors have now strongly implied that the former would be unacceptable. If they favor the latter, they should come out and say so.

Yesterday Fox News reported that the Obama administration had decided that the United States will keep only 3,000 troops in Iraq past 2011. Fox said that “senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision, which has already been signed off by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.” However Panetta denied the report yesterday and White House spokesperson Jay Carney said yesterday that “no decisions on troop levels have been made.”

And the war hawks wasted no time attacking the president. Iraq war cheerleaders Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) issued a statement saying they are “deeply troubled” by the report, saying 3,000 troops is “dramatically lower than what our military leaders have consistently told us over the course of repeated visits to Iraq that they require.” John Bolton and Karl Rove piled on this morning on Fox News:

BOLTON: It’s a political decision. … I think everything is at risk now. This is a boon to the Iranians. It’s giving them a gift strategically that they could never have won on their own.

ROVE: [This is] clearly a political decision being managed out of the Chicago campaign headquarters and not out of the Pentagon.

Watch the clips:

One important factor that this criticism leaves out, of course, is that the decision is ultimately up to the Iraqis. As it stands now, the United States is set to have zero troops in Iraq past 2011. American officials have said publicly for many months that the U.S. is willing to keep troops in Iraq if the Iraqis want. However, Iraqi officials have gone back and forth on whether they will even attempt to make an internal agreement.

As for Bolton’s comment, the gift to the Iranians in this situation is not the United States leaving Iraq, it’s that the United States invaded Iraq in the first place.

President Obama at the United Nations in 2010.

Using a portion of Obama’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, the ad points out that Obama wanted an agreement for a “new member of the United Nations, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel” this year. “If he said it, he must have meant it,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says in the commercial.

Indeed, Obama expressing hope that the Palestinians could achieve statehood this year was a highlight of his U.N. speech last year and drew large applause from attendees. Watch Obama’s words then:

The United Nations Security Council and/or General Assembly are expected to vote on Palestinian statehood within the next two weeks. The United States has been pressuring the Palestinians to drop their statehood bid, while most U.N. member states are expected to support the Palestinian effort.

Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin notes that the Palestinians are also developing secondary options in case the United States vetoes their bid in the Security Council. One of these options is invoking the Korean War-era U.N. Resolution 377, which would allow the Palestinians to seek a General Assembly vote to be a non-member state. Under the guidelines of this resolution, the Palestinians would need nine out of 15 Security Council votes to refer the matter to the General Assembly. Another option being floated is to repeatedly go to the Security Council, forcing the United States to veto again and again.