Cheney: Iraq war not predestined as ex-CIA chief says

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2007

ABU DHABI (AFP) — US Vice President Dick Cheney denied that going to war in Iraq in 2003 was a foregone conclusion, as former CIA chief George Tenet says in a new book.

"That's just not true," Cheney told Fox News, which asked him about Tenet's allegation in Abu Dhabi, according to a White House transcript.

Tenet, who ran the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004, says in his new book "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA" that the invasion of Iraq was never the subject of a serious debate in the White House.

He says that the effort to launch the war began soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks, even though Iraq had no link to the attacks.

"I haven't read George's book, but to state that somehow the president didn't spend a lot...