Serious Arab Press Greet Cheney with Call for Impeachment

May 7 (EIRNS)--In an unprecedented shift, leading daily newspapers in three of the four Arab states Vice President Cheney will visit this week, and which he has targeted to join a "Sunni bloc" against Iran, are denouncing him, and even calling for his impeachment! Cheney is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Egypt, beginning Tuesday.

The strongest attack appeared today in the Saudi daily Al-Hayat , under the title, "I live for the hope of it [impeachment]," by the paper's editor-in-chief and former owner Jihad Al-Khazen. He calls Cheney the "war-party kingpin," and lists the lies he used to start the war against Iraq. "The US Administration did not err in its information about Iraq; it lied intentionally," writes Al-Khazen. Citing George Tenet, he says, "Cheney is such a shameless person that he dodged serving in Vietnam five times, but is now sending young Americans to die in Iraq." In conclusion, Al-Khazen cites former Presidential candidate George McGovern: "Cheney and Bush committed more serious impeachable offenses than Nixon,... and I expect that Cheney and Bush will be forced to resign before 2008." Speaking for himself, Al-Khazen adds, "I don't expect that, but I demand it, hope for it, and live for it."

Addustour , the semi-official Jordanian daily, Al-Bayan , the main U.A.E. daily in Dubai, and Al-Rai , the Jordanian daily with close ties to the Jordanian government, all jumped into the feeding frenzy on Cheney's forthcoming impeachment, with Al-Rai concluding: "Our Arab leaders may be polite with their foreign guests, but none of them is ready to go against their own nation's national interests."